Taliban launch offensive pending US withdrawal – Salman Rafi Sheikh

The endgame in Afghanistan increasingly portends a total victory for the Taliban, as violence escalates in the context of the definitive withdrawal of US troops.

Signals pointing in this direction are stained with blood. On May 8, a car bomb planted in Kabul to hit some students killed more than sixty people and wounded 147 others in an area occupied by the Hazara Shiites, a minority targeted by radical Sunni groups allied with the Taliban, including the State group. Islamic (Is).

On May 1, the day the US and NATO forces began to withdraw from the country, the Taliban launched a lethal attack on a major army base in the southern province of Ghazni. At least 17 soldiers lost their lives and dozens more were taken prisoner.

In Helmand province, where US forces had given control of a base to Afghan security forces just the day before, a Taliban attack on Lashkar Gah sparked a furious battle that prompted hundreds of families to flee their homes.

The Afghan defense ministry has confirmed that security forces are responding to Taliban attacks in at least six provinces in addition to Helmand.

The escalation of violence raises serious questions about the credibility of the multinational peace process, in which an “enlarged troika” – made up of the United States, China and Russia along with Pakistan, the Taliban and the Afghan national government – recently met in Doha , in Qatar, to announce a new “road map” towards peace.

Although the troika has called on all Afghan parties to “defend the rights of all Afghans, including women, men, children, war victims and minorities,” it is unclear what the Taliban and other radical Islamist groups have in mind.

Concerns ignored
The new initiative of the Taliban suggests that the organization wants to gain a foothold in some areas after the departure of the Americans, presenting its presence as a fact to the national forces, whose firepower is clearly lower.

This calculation rests on the Taliban’s belief that resistance on the battlefield has forced the United States to negotiate and withdraw, and that there is no reason to stop the carnage at a time when complete military and ideological victory is at hand. . The last 2,500 to 3,500 US troops will leave Afghanistan on 9/11, marking the end of a 20-year mission.

Yet many Afghans feel that the peace process has blatantly ignored their concerns about the Taliban’s aspiration to create an Islamic emirate, a system based on the sharia which would inevitably wipe out some liberal reforms promoted by US-backed secular governments.

The Taliban have assured that after the US withdrawal they will respect women and allow them to have an education, but the role of women in society remains severely limited under the sharia professed by the Taliban. Many believe that the Troika’s failure to respond to these fears amounts to an acceptance of Taliban rule over the country.

The recent rise in violence has also highlighted some cracks between the countries involved in the peace process. After the attack on the Kabul students, the Chinese foreign ministry said it was “shocked” and “deeply saddened” by the attack, calling on the United States to withdraw its troops “in a responsible way”.

“It is important to point out that the sudden announcement by the United States of a complete withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan has resulted in a series of violent attacks across the country, worsening the security situation and threatening peace and stability as well as civilian life, ”spokesman Hua Chunying said on Sunday.

China has long feared that greater instability in Afghanistan could create more space for Islamic fundamentalism, which could then encroach on the (mostly Muslim) Chinese region of Xinjiang, where Beijing is accused of persecution of the Muslim Uyghur minority. . China has tried to involve the Taliban in its new silk road initiative, but it is currently unclear to what extent the rebel organization is focused on Afghanistan’s economic future.

The United States and other actors involved in the peace process have lobbied for a ceasefire, but the Taliban have evaded these demands by insisting on their own to continue the jihad until they achieve their goals, including that of oust US and NATO troops from the country.

Kabul under siege
Last week, the Taliban put this maximalist position into practice literally within hours of the US troops’ withdrawal. In addition to the direct attacks, the extremists have already begun setting up their checkpoints on all major highways leading to the Afghan capital.

Many of these posts have been placed in places previously controlled by the Afghan security forces. Weakened by the withdrawal of the Americans, Afghan soldiers have already abandoned many positions across the country for fear of attacks by the Taliban.

The increasingly tight control of the highways is allowing the Taliban to surround the Afghan capital, which the organization believes is occupied by foreign forces and puppets led by President Ashraf Ghani, whose government it would like to neutralize.

The checkpoints complicate the transit of logistical supplies destined for the Afghan forces and have already forced some officers to reach the capital by plane, given that the national roads are now considered “Taliban territory”.

The rebel forces make their presence felt in and around several regional capitals, probably to test their security levels and to announce that they intend to take possession soon.

Analysts believe the Taliban are also testing the United States to see if they are willing to use their aerial firepower, as it did to defend Kandahar and Lashkar Gah in the fall of 2020, ahead of a possible attack on Afghan cities in the coming months.

This new Taliban push carries some economic risks. The United States and the European Union, which provide hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the government in Kabul, could close the purse strings and push the country into a sudden economic abyss, complicating the jihadists’ mission to impose an extremist government.

It is currently unclear whether there is room in the Taliban’s mind for anything other than full military victory over the United States, regardless of diplomatic and economic costs.

There are those who believe that, once some control over the territory is established, the Taliban will try to involve people outside the organization to obtain a peace agreement “wanted by the Afghans and managed by the Afghans” rather than by external actors.

But for many Afghans a peace modeled in the shadow of Taliban guns and the prospect of a return of the sharia it will not be much different from the order imposed twenty years ago under the threat of American B-52 bombers and the US military presence on the ground.

(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)