In a land bordering Eurasia, a pivotal region that can guarantee stability or create serious instability, the specter of its entry into a hostile orbit, close to the West, has prompted the Kremlin to intervene militarily to restore the status quo. It is not a war or an invasion, because Moscow’s leadership calls it an “operation”.

Penetrate to the capital, take control of geostrategic areas and critical infrastructure, then bring pressure to bear on the incumbent government and topple it. The idea is to conduct a fast-and-furious operation, which would not weigh on the already troubled state budget and remind the American-led First World that Moscow is willing to defend its sphere of influence militarily.

But what the Kremlin ignores, or perhaps knows but underestimates, is that a deadly snare has been prepared in that theater of war. An international brigade was ready in the wings waiting for the misstep to rush to the place. The Western arms industry was waiting for the invasion to supply the resistance with military supplies. And a gruelling proxy war was about to begin. A description of Ukraine 2022. A description of Afghanistan 1979-1989.

The whole world in Kabul

The differences between the wars in Ukraine and Afghanistan are manifold, starting from the casus belli and their lawfulness: an aggression in the first case, an intervention requested by the country’s government that degenerated into war in the second. But it is important to focus on the similarities. Because the White House, in both cases, took advantage of the Kremlin’s misstep to start a proxy war of attrition with the goal of bringing about, or at least facilitating, a regime change.

The anti-Soviet international set up by the United States as part of the most expensive covert operation in its history, codenamed Cyclone, played an instrumental role in catalysing the economic and practical collapse of the Soviet Union. For nine years, from 1979 to 1989, the Kremlin found itself fighting in an inaccessible, largely unknown territory against a well-trained enemy, supplied with Western-made advanced weaponry, supported by regional powers’ intelligence and capable of making up for the losses overnight.

Operation Cyclone, “the greatest legacy to any Third World insurrection”, turned Afghanistan into the “Vietnam of the Soviets”. A war lost from the start for the Kremlin. Some 20,000 foreign fighters (mujāhidīn) attracted annually by the echo of Jihad coming from the Hindu Kush and relaunched by mosques throughout the Middle East. More than 10 billion dollars were invested in the Afghan theater by the United States and its partners. The arsenal that was made available to the insurgents is unquantified and unquantifiable.

A proxy war and a laboratory

The United States saw the Politburo’s miscalculation as a historic and unrepeatable opportunity to turn Afghanistan into a Soviet Vietnam. A tremendous but fair revenge for the ignominious defeat suffered in Southeast Asia a few years earlier. And they mustered an unlikely coalition of the willing united by a common denominator: anti-Soviet hate.

The Reagan presidency persuaded many nations to join the proxy war, some by providing weapons, some by supplying intelligence and some by exporting fighters. The most important members, however, were undoubtedly Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, West Germany, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the People’s Republic of China. The Soviets, by contrast, could only count on the (limited) support of Cuba and East Germany.

This all-against-one was aggravated by the way of fighting, the armaments and the organisational structure of the two sides. The Red Army was numerically hegemonic, accustomed to massive bombardments and had a predilection for open and regular clashes, but possessed a poor knowledge of the battlefield and suffered from problems in terms of interdepartmental communication and intelligence gathering. The mujahideen, on the other hand, could boast familiarity with the terrain, useful when conducting asymmetrical Thermopylae-style battles, infinite liquidity supplied by a series of shadowy circuits, such as the Haqqani network, the possession of 24/7 intelligence and the most technologically advanced arsenal on the planet to shatter the Red Army’s air superiority.

The red line of the Soviet Union became the red line of the United States. Afghanistan was to become the terminus of Soviet expansion in Asia. And for the curse of the Tomb of Empires to be renewed, mortally bogging down the Russian soldiers, the United States made Afghanistan more than just a theater of proxy warfare: they made it a laboratory.

The mujahideen bore the burden of crushing the Red Army, the military-industrial complex of the United States had the honour of arming them with the latest inventions from the Pentagon’s macroscopic research and development sector. Afghanistan as a laboratory in which to battle-test the effectiveness of new weapons – like the FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles to be used against Mil Mi-24 helicopters.

The consequences

The war in Afghanistan, together with the Polish revolution led by Solidarity, was the blade that bled dry the already dying Soviet Union, accelerating its decline and inevitable implosion. An epoch-making victory, because it was the last chapter in the Cold War. A half-way victory for others, because of the nefarious blowback generated in the subsequent years by that Frankenstein that was the jihadist international.

It is not easy to determine who is wrong and who is right, since history, (un)objective by definition, is a matter of perspectives. And, in fact, if it is true that to defeat the Soviet Empire the United States inadvertently created Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, it is equally true that the mujahideen would soon prove useful in Yugoslavia, where they were recycled against the Serbs. And as it is true that the Al-Qaeda threat, symbolized by 9/11, was later capitalised to remake the face of the Middle East in the name of the Project for a New American Century and to prolong the Unipolar Moment, from whose breast came the milk of contemporary Afghanistans: from Syria to Ukraine. Tomorrow, perhaps, a new Afghanistan could appear somewhere between Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific, in one or more of those lands affected by the US-China competition.

L'articolo The ghost of Afghanistan looms over Ukraine proviene da InsideOver.

Afghanistan represents more of an American political capitulation to a terrorist organization (the Taliban) than a U.S. military defeat. By overruling his military generals, who forewarned that a precipitous American withdrawal would facilitate Taliban’s conquest, U.S. President Joe Biden has sent Afghanistan back in time, to the “dark age” of terrorist rule.

The greatest costs of Biden’s blunder are being counted in Afghans tortured and killed, girls sexually enslaved through forced “marriages” to Taliban fighters, and women and girls losing their rights to education and equality. The damage to America’s international credibility and standing pales in comparison to the costs ordinary Afghans are paying for the biggest U.S. foreign-policy disaster in decades.

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan is the greatest jihadist victory in modern times. It is an unprecedented boost for jihadists everywhere, from Europe to Africa and Asia. It will inspire other terrorist groups, thus promising the rebirth of global terror.

The regional impact is already apparent. For example, there has been a spurt of terrorism in the Indian-administered part of disputed and divided Kashmir and increasing seizures of Afghan-origin heroin in India, which is located between the world’s two main opium-producing centers — the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran “Golden Crescent” and the Myanmar-Thailand-Laos “Golden Triangle.”

Pakistan has effectively gained proxy control of Afghanistan by masterminding the Taliban’s conquest of that country. The Taliban, along with their special forces, the Haqqani Network, are a wing of the Pakistani “deep state.” The Haqqani Network chief, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who now serves as Afghanistan’s interior minister, is a deputy leader of the Taliban. Even before the Taliban formed their government, the head of Pakistan’s rogue Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency reached Kabul, as if to advertise that the real boss had stepped in.

Pakistan’s celebrations, however, are unlikely to last long. An unstable, economically bankrupt and terrorist-ruled Afghanistan will likely exacerbate violent jihadism in Pakistan, whose ethnic and sectarian fault lines have already made its future uncertain.

Pakistan’s military, meanwhile, has expanded its role from strategic matters to economic management, with its commercial empire valued at more than $100 billion. Its domineering role ensures a weak civilian government. As former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said, the military has progressed from being a “state within a state” to becoming a “state above the state.”

It is Pakistan’s military that has long reared terrorist groups because it employs terrorism as an instrument of state policy against neighboring countries. Ironically, the U.S. has long served as Pakistan’s top aid donor. General Hamid Gul, a former chief of Pakistan’s military spy agency, once boasted that, when history is written, it will be recorded that, “The ISI, with the help of America, defeated America.” That boast came true when Kabul fell to the Taliban on August 15.

Given Afghanistan’s strategic location at the crossroads of Central, South and Southwest Asia, it is no surprise that the greatest geopolitical fallout from Afghanistan’s security and humanitarian catastrophe is being felt in the region extending from Russia and China to the Middle East. The void opened by America’s humiliating retreat has given greater strategic space for an assertive China in particular to expand its strategic footprint.

China, with its long-standing ties to the Taliban, including supplying weapons via Pakistan, has taken the lead in portraying the U.S. as a declining power whose ditching of the Afghan government demonstrates that it is an unreliable partner for any country. After Kabul’s fall, China’s victory lap included a state-media warning to Taiwan that the U.S. would abandon it too in the face of a Chinese invasion.

The Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan helps China in other ways, too. Given that Pakistan is a Chinese client, the U.S. defeat paves the way for China to make strategic inroads into Afghanistan, with its substantial mineral wealth and location between Iran and the Pakistan-India belt. China has sought to achieve this by offering the Taliban the two things it desperately needs: international recognition and economic aid. Beijing has been demanding that Washington unfreeze Afghanistan’s financial assets.

One definite loser from America’s Afghanistan debacle is India, whose security risks coming under siege from the Pakistan-China-Taliban coalition. India, one of the largest aid donors to Afghanistan, had a big presence in that country, but its diplomats and civilians were among the first to flee.

Since last year, India has been locked in military standoffs with China along their long Himalayan border following furtive China incursions across the frontier. But if India now faces a greater terrorist threat from across its western borders, it will have less capacity to counter an expansionist China.

When the Taliban was previously in power, from 1996 to 2001, it allowed Pakistan to use Afghan territory to train terrorists for missions in India. Its return to power thus opens a new front for terrorism against India, which may be forced to shift its focus from the intensifying military standoffs with China in the Himalayas. Simply put, Afghanistan’s fall is likely to strengthen the anti-India axis between the Taliban’s sponsor, Pakistan, and Pakistan’s main patron, China.

Meanwhile, thanks to the Taliban’s defeat of the world’s leading power, radical Islam is again on the march, a development that carries security implications even for Western countries. The Taliban, for its part, is turning Afghanistan into a narco-terrorist state. According to a recent UN Security Council report, the production and trafficking of poppy-based and synthetic drugs remain “the Taliban’s largest single source of income,” contributing “significantly to the narcotics challenges facing the wider international community.” The criminal profits from this trade lubricate the Taliban’s terror machine.

The Taliban’s “Islamic emirate” is likely to serve as a magnet for violent Islamists from around the world. The Taliban regime’s cabinet includes a who’s who of international terrorism, including some of the world’s most-notorious narcotics kingpins. The U.S.-led global war on terror, which was already faltering before Biden took office, may not recover.

Brahma Chellaney, author of nine books, is Professor of Strategic Studies at the independent Center for Policy Research in New Delhi and a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow of the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin.

L'articolo Regional consequences of Biden’s Afghan debacle proviene da InsideOver.

After quickly swarming rural districts and more significant urban hubs, Taliban forces entered the Afghan capital Kabul and seized power in an effort noted for scale and speed. The Afghan government should have, in theory, held the upper hand with a more significant force at its disposal.

The Afghan security forces are estimated to have numbered more than 300,000 on paper. The armed strength of the Taliban is even harder to measure, however, with some estimates suggesting a core strength of 60,000 with the addition of other militia groups and supporters, potentially bringing that up to 200,000.

The significant difference between the two forces was, very obviously, one had the backing of NATO, and the other did not. The other still won, however.

Throughout the conflict, the permeation of the concept of a Western “exit strategy” in strategic thinking meant Western politicians always focused on whether it was time to leave. Indeed, for 20 years, Western efforts signalled a lukewarm strategic commitment to the country. So all the Taliban had to do was wait. They knew Western forces would be leaving, just not when.

Waning Western commitment steadily lessened, and many of the underlying conditions for the Afghan military’s collapse began to blossom. US President Joe Biden argued, very publicly, that Afghan forces seemed to lack the will to fight. Others either blame issues with training, the overuse of private contractors or even just incompetency. I do not believe that the leading cause of what happened to the Afghan military is specifically any of those, nor do I think it a failure of character.

Instead, I believe that Afghan soldiers encountered what some have termed a “commitment problem” due to witnessing what to them must have been a significant shift in the strategic environment. This shift appeared to change their minds that winning was possible to the realisation that losing was probably inevitable – and dangerous for their families.

As Western forces began to withdraw their personnel and their equipment, the Taliban started gaining territory. There’s no separating one from the other; this happened because Western troops began to leave and, in some cases, took their support with them.

What’s notable is that while the Taliban advanced, they increased efforts to negotiate with Afghan forces at rural outposts and towns, convincing many of them to surrender and go home. Once that happened and those troops went home and spread the news that they surrendered, I believe a Taliban victory was from that point on inevitable. I think this is proven by the fact that as the Taliban advanced further, they didn’t really encounter any significant resistance and instead were met with increasing numbers of surrendering Afghan troops.

Towards the end of the Taliban march, as any of us would do, ordinary Afghan people that comprised their armed forces chose safety in numbers, and thousands of them surrendered together.

The rapid advance of the Taliban took the general public and even the defence community by surprise, even President Biden acknowledged that the US Government and the mighty US military had been caught off guard by the rapid dissolution of the Afghan military.

Despite the incredible advantages the superpower-backed Afghan army had on paper… the Taliban took over Afghanistan in a matter of weeks. So quick was this takeover; the withdrawal of foreign troops and citizens from Afghanistan hadn’t been completed. Many of you will even remember seeing imagery of Afghan citizens chasing western cargo aircraft down the runway at Kabul airport in the desperate hope of getting a flight to safety. For that to happen is proof that everyone involved appears to have been caught off-guard by how quickly Afghan forces folded.

So, again, why did Afghan forces dissolve so quickly in the face of the Taliban advance? What accelerated their “commitment problem”?

Rich Outzen, a retired US colonel speaking publicly in an interview with Turkish news outlet Anadolu Agency, attributed the surrender to a lack of support in the form of everything from combat air support, logistics, transportation and communications once the US and other Western forces and contractors finally withdrew from the country in the months leading up to the Taliban advance.

It is important to note that in a mountainous country like Afghanistan, ground forces would always be very heavily dependent on air support, and unfortunately, this support provided by the United States and private contractors was effectively taken away overnight.

This meant that people would be more inclined to surrender and go home as they could not feel the support of the central Afghan government or indeed US or western forces.

Soldiers, like any other people, seek safety in numbers. When they fight in battle, they can only win if they work together as one cohesive force. However, individual decisions to fight or flee typically depend on mutual expectations.

If a soldier believes that most of his comrades are going to fight alongside them, they can be confident of safety and strength as a team. Victory is possible. However, if a soldier expects that most of their comrades will surrender, surrender seems more reasonable. Defeat is inevitable. Once a soldier learns that hundreds, or even thousands, of their comrades have already surrendered or abandoned them, then there can be no turning back. The morale and even willpower to fight back is gone. Why bother? A trickle of desertions leads to a flood of surrenders and eventually the collapse of an entire fighting force.

I believe that this is what happened to the Afghan military.

L'articolo The Afghan Army should have won – why didn’t it? proviene da InsideOver.

I wish i was killed in one of those explosions here. I think of the girls who were killed in the attack on Kabul University in the classroom above their books and pens and envy them.

They are resting in peace,they did not bury their dreams while alive, and did not mourn their wishes and hopes٫ they did not worry about their uncertain future, and were not waiting for others to determine their future.

They have not been forced into forced or early marriages due to deprivation of education, poverty and social pressures. They did not ask anyone for help to save their lives and their dreams. They have not heard the repeated reply “I’m sorry I can not do anything for you, please stay safe.” They have not seen the death of humanity with their own eyes. And they did not disappointed of the world and its people.

They only died once but we die again and again. Have you heard of gradual death? You suffer alone, you suffocate, no one sees or hears you, as if all their ears are closed so that the sound of your moans does not bother them. You get lost in the darkness. And no one shows you the way.

You die every day without anyone knowing. you mourn for yourself every day without anyone sympathizing with you.

And endure all these because you only want your basic human rights. And this is all the crime and sin that you committed. of course, along with the crime of being a woman. Have you ever had such an experience? Did you feel that way? If the only options you are given are one of these two (death of body and soul together for only once or death of soul without body and a thousand times a day).

Which one do you choose and prefer? I prefer the first one And this is something I wish every moment

Why should the women be a symbol of defining and expressing the size of men’s Muslimness? SinceAfghanistan is a traditional society and adhered to certain ethnic customs, less attention was paid to the role and position of women in political and social affairs. Therefore, women could not play any role in fate and social, cultural or political affairs. With the Taliban entering Kabul in 1996, the situation became the worst it could be. The city’s university was closed, girls and women were barred from entering the streets,education and employment were shut down, and cinemas and cultural centers were set on fire.

Even after the political upheavals of 2001 and the formation of Afghanistan’s new government, in which the issue of women and their participation changed dramatically over the past twenty years with the support of the government and the international community and the efforts of Afghan women, The fear and hatred of the Taliban regime has always been ingrained in the hearts of the women and girls of this land.Nevertheless They became doctors, nurses, engineers, journalists,pilots, athlete ,politicians, judges, teachers, artists, activists, actors and businesswomen.

But now all 20 years vanished in 20 days. Boys are back at their desks at school, while their sisters are still stuck at home looking at their brothers with regret.

Men whose duties do not conflict with Taliban ideology go to work, while their working wives are sitting in the corner of the house. There is no longer a ministry called the Women’s Affairs Ministry to take steps to empower and defend women’s rights, because in the first days of their rule, they dissolved this ministry and set up ministry of propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice instead.

They have been deprived of their inalienable right to demonstrate and sue for their rights, and their answer is given by whipping and beating. I am writing this while I have been hiding in a corner with my family for weeks due to anti-extremist activities and duty in foreign organizations who worked for women. After 17 years of study, I was about to finish university and get my degree in medicine, now I am seeing my white coat, which dust covers it, But I have made a commitment to myself which And as long as I can breathe, I will not stop trying to hear my voice, which is the voice of millions of Afghan girls.

In this way, I boldly say to the Taliban and their supporters that you are nothing more than a coward. You are afraid of women’s knowledge. Because if a woman learns and wakes up, a generation and a nation will wake up, and that the awakening of nations is definitely not in the interest of extremist and dark-minded groups like you.
Women can not be eliminatable, correct your thoughts.

The last efforts of an Afghan girl before she was silenced forever.

L'articolo I wish I was killed in one of those explosions here proviene da InsideOver.

The great-power competition entered a new stage on 15 August 2021, that is when the Taliban took over Kabul. Only two weeks later, despite the widespread violence and a bloody terrorist attack on Kabul International Airport, the West completed a hasty and poorly conceived exfiltration of its military and diplomatic personnel and of those who worked with the Western-backed governments over the past twenty years – the so-called “collaborators”.

No one knows what is the Taliban’s real plan for Afghanistan – investment-attracting center or terrorist sanctuary? Foreign interference-free place, Chinese-alligned country or smart double agent? –, but something is as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow: the Great Game 2.0 is far from over, it has simply entered a new stage. And this new phase is likely to be even more unpredictable than previous one, being the reflection of the conformation in the making of the international system: multipolarity.

Driven by the goal of understanding what could happen in Afghanistan in the next future, and what could be the regional repercussions of the rise of the Taliban, we went directly to Nur-Sultan to speak with the Special Representative of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Afghanistan Talgat Kaliyev.

Understanding the Taliban phenomenon

Your Excellency, some days ago the Islamic State – Khorasan Province carried out a bloody attack on Kabul International Airport. What do you think will happen next? And what is your overall view on this twenty-year war, on the rise of the Taliban and on Afghanistan?

We condemned this terrible terrorist attack which had no justification. It was made by those who don’t want any stabilization in Afghanistan and seek to prevent the new authorities – the Taliban – to take full power. The country is in a very difficult situation right now. And the situation we have right now is the following: it’s been two weeks now that the Taliban entered the government and extended full power over the country.

We don’t want to comment the internal situation like others are doing, we have a “Kazakh approach” to Afghanistan. You know, we’ve seen this country experiencing a difficult situation for more than thirty years – since the Soviet invasion. Then it was turn of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Then it came the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. And now, since August 2021, we entered a new stage and a difficult period of transition.

As you know the President Ghani left the country and there was no resistance as it was expected, despite the fact that the Afghan security forces were trained for years and billions of dollars were spent for it. We need to understand that Afghanistan is a unique country: not a single nation, but a country where a lot of ethnicities live. Plus, these ethnicities are divided on tribal and clan lines, which means that the country management by one capital city and one political party is very difficult. Very, very difficult.

We don’t know yet how the Taliban will manage the country, but we must read the events by assuming their own perspective. Their ideology is very simple: the country should be ruled by the Sharia laws, that is by very strictly applied Islamic laws. To understand what they could be able to do today we can compare them to the first Taliban government, which lasted five years, from 1996 to 2001. In any case, they [the Taliban] have been presented a list of criteria to be met by the international community and the regional countries, like the respect of human rights, in particular of women, children, minorities and of those who supported the last regime – who should not be persecuted. In short, they have to be civil, because they will be judged by what they do in reality, which is important in terms of regional security.

This is a very important part of the world, it is an area of interest for powerful countries like Pakistan, Iran, Russia and China. Even India has its own vision of Afghanistan. The European Union and the United States has no more obligations after having taken their citizens and the Afghan collaborators back – we’re speaking of thousands of thousands of people. And, you know, we are hosting some UN personnel [ed. 261 people] on request of the United Nations. They were relocated from Kabul to our offices in Almaty because they were in danger. They will continue their work from here.

What do you think of the terrorist attack on Kabul International Airport, of its impact? And what do you think of the rise of the Taliban: was it inevitable?

The blast at the Kabul airport is another problem, another big issue, another unknown for the future of Afghanistan. By the way, we can do nothing until the Taliban-led build-up of the new state and the new government is completed. The whole world is waiting for this. Who will be put in charge? Who will be the President? Who will be the Prime Minister? Who will take the cabinet’s positions? We don’t know yet, but we have to be calm, because putting pressure will not hep: it will make the situation worse.

Indeed, the Taliban’s rise to power is the result, let’s say, of the natural course of history. That’s what it is. I saw no resistance. You know, the Afghans were tired of these decades of non-stop war all over the country. The truth is very simple: Afghans wanted peace after more than forty years of war. What will be the outcome? We don’t know yet. But we can be sure of something: the world will not leave Afghanistan. Its neighbors are regional leaders and will do their best to make Afghanistan prosperous, stable and responsible before other countries.

Do you think that the Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan could jeopardize the national security of Kazakhstan and neighboring countries by catalyzing and boosting processes of religious radicalization within them?

We have to see, but in any case we could understand the real results of the Taliban government and of its regional impact only in a couple of years from now. Don’t forget that the countries surrounding Afghanistan are Islamic – Iran, Uzbekistan, etc – and they see no risk. If you remember, there was a lot of fear in 1979 when the Ayatollah Khomeini rose to power with an Islamic revolution, and what? Nothing happened.

We have to divide reality from imagination, because life is unpredictable: yesterday’s fantasy can turn into today’s reality. We are all humans, we all make mistakes, especially in our judgments. Some judgments may prove correct now, while some of them which are wrong now may turn correct in next 25 years! You know, we are living in a very difficult period of time, and difficult times hinder correct judgments.

For instance, the globalization was unsustainable but we are seeing the consequences of it only now. Some regions, like Europe, became richer and richer, whereas others not. And then you had the flows of refugees from Afghanistan, Africa, etc, which became bigger and bigger and all of them headed to Europe. But this is part of a global problem. As for Kazakhstan, it’s one of the most successful stories of the globalization: just 18 million people and we have no flows of refugees, but a stable political system, a growing economy, etc.

America’s time in Afghanistan has come to an end, and several other powers are in a hurry to take advantage of this event. Kazakhstan has the potential to be one of the players who will earn the most from this epoch-making paradigm shift, but is it ready to shine on Central Asia?

Our time started in 1991, that is when Kazakhstan got independence. That year our time began: the time to shine forever. We only need time to make our economy stronger and more diversified, to get rid of this dependence on oil revenues. We have very ambitious plans, like on green economy and on alternative sources of energy. This is the reason why we are sending our students and our young people across the world – you know, in the United States, Korea, Japan and so on – to study in the best universities. It’s because they will be – or rather, they already have become – the driving force that will push Kazakhstan forward.

L'articolo The Taliban and Central Asia, Kaliyev speaks proviene da InsideOver.

Taliban in Kabul is eager to sport a moderate image. So are their sponsors in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.  it does not come as a surprise that the transformation of Mujahideen (freedom fighters) into Talibs (students in Pashto language) and now their rooting for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Empty coffers amidst scenes of chaos and bloodshed beamed into drawing rooms across the world have their own sobering effect on Taliban. So much so, a photograph that showed a Taliban spokesman being interviewed by a woman reporter of local TV is nothing short of a PR coup. Whether deliberate or accidental it served as the booster dose needed to reassure the world that Taliban 2.0 is truly different and they have changed in between 1996 and 2001.

Violence was an indispensable trait of Taliban in 1996.  The ‘transfer of power’ in 2021 was without any bloodshed.  The scenes at the Kabul airport and demonstrations against the takeover are simply tailor made to pump prime trustworthiness.

The Talibs trained in Pakistani Islamist schools are not known to honour their promises; they have been breaching their agreements with impunity. The do not respect the Pakhtoon code of honor which bars targeting women, and the unarmed.  They had promised peace after an agreement signed in Doha two years ago, but they returned to their violent ways shortly after.

Some gestures, some words and an odd photograph are not the barometer to gauge the change of heart. The Taliban have since invoked Sharia law and made it binding on women in particular. Clearly, the new Taliban frown upon the freedom Afghan women enjoyed for the 20 years that they werent there.  That was why even in the TV show designed to serve as PR, the woman reporter was seen sitting several yards away from the Taliban spokesman. Put simply, PR illusions and diversionary assurances have a short lifespan.

Pakistan’s role in the formation and support of the taliban contributes to the trust deficit Taliban suffers from. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is their creator and supporter; their creation was for creating a foothold in Kabul to secure the larger interests of Pakistan in the Middle East and Central Asia. This is what Pakistan sees as its strategic depth beyond Durand Line that divides the two countries.

There are reports that ISI had deployed its spies as liaison officers with the Taliban groups marching from across the country towards Kabul.

For Pakistan, Afghan Taliban and its offshoot, Haqqani Network are good Taliban, but Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, TTP, is bad Taliban since they target Pakistani targets – soft and strategic alike.

Lending further credence to Pakistan factor vis-à-vis Taliban 2.0 is the statement of Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed.

“Previously, Pakistan was supporting the US due to which TTP and Taliban were on the same page. That is not the case now,” Rashid was quoted as saying in a front-page dispatch in the Lahore based Daily Times on the 18th August. His comments appeared amidst reports that former deputy chief Maulana Faqir Mohammad and other key Pakistan Taliban commanders were released from Afghan jails.

“We have taken the Taliban on-board over the TTP issue. We told them that Pakistan will not allow its soil to be used against Afghanistan and we expect them not to allow the use of Afghan soil against us”, the minister stated. He, however, ducked questions on the role of Sirajuddin Haqqani, seen as Pakistan’s proxy, in the new dispensation, according to Daily Times. GHQ Shura reportedly told Taliban to induct Sirajuddin in the ruling Kabul circle.

The Taliban Pakistan link will remain for as long as terrorism is the key plank of Pakistan’s foreign and security policies targeted as much against India as facilitating the emergence of a new caliphate in the region and beyond.

The US is aware and monitors Pakistans involvement. Beijing is aware of Pakistan’s jihadi approach but has its geo-political compulsions, which range from contrasting the White House to checkmating insurgency in its own Uighur Muslim stronghold.

Russia is the odd man out in the Kabul theatre today. The desire to rewrite history and reclaim the lost glory is an overwhelming urge that made Moscow continue its engagement while it keeps Islamic terror at bay in the CIS states.

It is these concerns coupled with Pakistan’s quest for a larger than life role to control the Taliban’s finances that appear to reset the stage in Kabul.

Expectedly, the Pakistani establishment sees Indian ‘defeat’ in the return of Taliban. This is an extension of their India fixation that dates back to the day of their creation from British India.

Also,  during the past twenty years, India was actively helping Afghanistan to build its civic infrastructure – roads, schools, hospitals, and dams.  It was not Afghan specific outreach but Gandhian philosophy in action of helping less developed countries in whatever way possible.
Anyhow, India, unlike Pakistan’s Durand line conflict, has no dispute with Afghanistan.

Taliban 1.0 did not accept the Durand Line. Taliban 2.0 may do like-wise, as a part of its survival mantra.

Being Pashtun at the core, Taliban has an eye on the Pashtun speaking areas along the border on Pakistan side. It is too early to predict whether the Taliban will work to carve out a new buffer Pashtun state to undo an historical wrong.

But if it does, it will mean that the two-state theory which created India and Pakistan in 1947 will have failed a second time. The first time in 1971 with the creation if Bangladesh from Pakistan and now with the creation of a new pashtun state, which may lead to the balkanization of pakistan and creating a failed nuclear power.

L'articolo Has the Taliban changed? Taliban 2.0 has new PR but the fundamentals are the same proviene da InsideOver.

Taliban has stepped up its offensive, attacking Afghan cities and killing people in the backdrop of the US forces leaving the country after two decades of prolonged war. Now, the government in Kabul is trying its best to defend the country from Taliban and allied radical Islamist forces. However, Taliban continues to capture new areas and subsequently impose regime thatintends to take Afghanistan to old days under Taliban’s rule. It which means the non-existence of human values and even death punishment for petty crimes or violations of rules.The territories that have fallen to the Taliban in the past few days have witnessed horrors from the past. There have been reports of Talibani forces killing civilians and off-duty security personnel as well as bombing homes and assaulting women.Many such videos of atrocities by Talibani militants are going viral, which also show distressed Afghani people asking for global help.

As the Talibani militants are capturing cities, many people are migrating to other parts of the country, which are under the Kabul government, in order to escape brutal treatment. “We know that the Taliban have warned residents and have given some neighbourhoods time to leave their homes in a matter of hours,”reported TRT World’s correspondent Bilal Sarwary. “People continue to abandon their homes and livelihoods and move from one part of the city to another,”Sarwaryhas been covering the fighting between Taliban and Afghan forces. The assault on civilians by the Taliban has caused the deaths of hundreds of innocent people including children. Over 900,000 people are reported to have been displaced after the Taliban launched attacks on civilian areas in the past three months.

The Taliban forces are setting homes of average, unarmed Afghan families on fire and even using civilians as a human shield during the gun-battles with armed forces. Mohammad Nazar, a resident of Tazarigh village in Kaldar district of Balkh in northern Afghanistansaid the Taliban was assisted by foreign militants from Pakistan when homes in his village were destroyed. “Here it was our home. The Taliban, who are the slaves of Pakistan, came here and destroyed our homes, they planted mines here,” he told media.

Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has reported that as many as 2,957 civilians casualties were reported in the first six months of 2021, of which 1,213 deaths were deaths. Taliban was responsible for 48.5 percent of these civilian casualties. Now, the UK and the US have accused the Taliban of ‘massacring civilians’ in possible ‘war crimes’ in Spin Boldak, south Afghanistan. Taliban took 900 people out of their homes and shot them to death.“The Taliban’s leadership must be held responsible for the crimes of their fighters The Taliban massacred dozens of civilians in revenge killings. These murders could constitute war crimes,” the US and the UK embassies said.

And women are worse affected by the Taliban brutalities. They are being beaten in public and even killed. Innocent Afghani women are being forced into “jihad al-nikah”, in which daughters and wives are forcefully sent to terrorists to serve them sexually.Former US president George W. Bush has feared that Afghan women and girls are going to “suffer unspeakable harm.” It led him to question the decision to pull out troops, which led to the war-torn country being swallowed by Talibani militants. “I think the consequences are going to be unbelievably bad,” he said.

Now, Taliban militants are trying to impose rigid and suppressive rules based on Sharia laws in the area they have captured recently.New fatwas (decrees) issued by them forbid women from going out of their homes without male companions while forces men to grow a beard. They also have come up with dowry regulations for girls, said Merajuddin Sharifi, a social activist. They urged women in a statement to not leave home without a male relative. Taliban insist on trials without evidence,” he said. There are a few more sanctions on women. Now they should not ride a taxi and be always covered ina burqa.Revoking old memories, the Taliban has banned the production and distribution of music or any audio-visual entertainment.

L'articolo Taliban kills civilians, assault women as they capture new areas Afghanistan proviene da InsideOver.

President Donald Trump recently indicated he wants a withdrawal of the remaining US soldiers in Afghanistan by Christmas. “We should have the small remaining number of our brave men and women serving in Afghanistan at home by Christmas!” the president tweeted on Wednesday, without any additional details. The Taliban welcomed the president’s announcement as an “important step.” 

Accelerating the Planned Troop Withdrawal

Facilitating the president’s ambitious plan would significantly accelerate the withdrawal agreement of troops between the US and the Taliban. In the past few years, Trump has repeatedly stated his proclivity to cease America’s “endless wars” and bring home the troops. The president’s statement on Wednesday surprised even US officials, however. At the beginning of August this year, the US Department of Defense announced a reduction of US soldiers in Afghanistan from the current 8,600 to 5,000 by November. 

Based on the agreement signed with the radical Islamic Taliban on February 29, the United States will gradually withdraws its armed forces from the Hindu Kush until mid-2021. In return, the Taliban have agreed to conduct peace negotiations with the government in Kabul. The negotiations started on September 12 in Qatar. However, the talks lack progress, and the Taliban are continuing their attacks, which have repeatedly killed Afghan security forces and civilians.

What Does Washington Want?

Washington also demanded a guarantee that Afghanistan would not become a sanctuary for terrorists from all over the world, similar to the Taliban’s previous reign. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, yielded the invasion of the US armed forces in Afghanistan as part of the Global War on Terror. The United States and its allies defeated the Taliban, who gave shelter to the terrorist network Al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden and liberated large areas of the nation from the extremists.

After 19 years of US troop presence in Afghanistan, Trump’s plan of withdrawal is now a bipartisan consensus including on the part of his challenger Joe Biden.  

The president ran on the promise to bring home the troops first in his campaign against Hillary Clinton. His current campaign also emphasizes withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq. However, Trump failed to deliver his campaign promise, particularly in the case of Afghanistan and the announcement on Wednesday, and indeed the confusion it caused, points to this being a reckless campaign maneuver without any actual plans for facilitation. 

Fluctuating US Troop Levels in Afghanistan

When President Barack Obama left office in January 2017, around 8,400 US soldiers remained in Afghanistan. In his early years in office, Obama dramatically increased the US presence, from just over 30,000 to more than 100,000 at its peak in 2011. Contrary to President Trump’s election rhetoric, his administration increased the troops compared to Obama’s 8,400. It needed the February agreement with the Taliban that the US military reduced its number in Afghanistan from 12,000 to now around 8,600. 

The president’s remarks appear particularly ill-advised given the occurrences the past weekend. Two bomb attacks killed at least 18 people in Afghanistan. Authorities announced that 13 people – including three civilians – were killed in northern Sar-e Pul province on Saturday when an explosive device exploded next to a passing vehicle. Three soldiers were also wounded. An hour-long firefight with the Taliban preceded the casualties.

Moreover, an explosive device recently went off in the southern Helmand province roadside when a bus drove by. According to the Afghan government, at least five people died. The government blamed the Taliban for the attack.

The situation in Afghanistan remains highly volatile, and the peace talks continue to stall. The US President’s comments, purely for election purposes, cannot be helpful. The fact that the Taliban expressed support for the president’s ideas is a warning sign and one ought to be extremely cautious about this kind of development, particularly in the White House.

Moreover, the Afghanistan engagement is not a partisan issue in the US. The upside of the president’s pernicious remarks is thus infinitesimal at best. The downside is that this statement results in even less leverage for Qatar’s intra-Afghan negotiation: considering the Afghan government is dealing with extremists it is sufficiently complex already without the president’s self-serving and reckless tweets. 

L'articolo Trump Suggests Early Troop Removal from Afghanistan proviene da InsideOver.

When talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban began in Doha a week ago, many were hoping for peace for Afghanistan and its people. However, rapprochement between both sides has yet to occur, and the most recent attacks will not make the facilitation of peace any more straightforward.

Talks Have Reached an Impasse Over Basic Issues

One week after the opening of the intra-Afghan dialogue in Doha, the Taliban delegations and the Afghan government are barely making any headway. The talks have stalled on fundamental and basic issues.

For one, the contact groups on both sides – which have to determine the course and framework for the negotiations – have not yet agreed on how the war of the past 19 years should even be described. The Taliban insist on calling it a holy war, a jihad – in an attempt to justify their repugnant attacks that have taken so many lives.

Then there is a dispute over the precise definition and rights of different religions and beliefs in the country moving forward. According to the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, different religious communities, such as the Shiites or the Sunnis, are permitted to have different interpretations of Islamic jurisprudence in order to do justice to the diversity of the various religious and ethnic groups in the country. The Taliban, however, seek to allow only their one strict interpretation of Sharia law when regulating religious matters.

The Taliban-US Deal

The third controversial point is the Doha agreement that the Taliban signed with the US in late February. The Taliban seeks to make it the basis of the intra-Afghan dialogue. In the event that the US concessions, such as the withdrawal of troops, were not facilitated, talks with the government delegation would also lapse.

The talks in Doha were also burdened by an airstrike by Afghan against the Taliban positions this past weekend. The Taliban have refused to agree to a ceasefire, and hence the fighting has continued despite the talks. As a result, the country remains in a state of chaos. A chaos that has caused at least 57 casualties among Afghan soldiers across the country in the past few days alone.

‘Unacceptably High’ Level of Violence in Afghanistan

The US expects further setbacks during the talks, particularly due to the “unacceptably high level” of violence, the Special Envoy for Afghanistan said on Thursday.

Despite the difficulties, the talks represent the best hope for peace in years and result from a February pact between the Taliban and the United States that allows US forces to withdraw in exchange for the Taliban’s promises of terrorism.

The Taliban continue to regard the Afghan government as a puppet of the USA and, to this day, refuse to hold direct talks with it. They also regard their fight against the government troops as justified and see themselves as liberators of the Afghan people from a foreign occupying power.

From 1996 until the US-led intervention in 2001, the extremist terror regime ruled Afghanistan and harbored the Al-Qaeda terrorist network responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

It’s Hard – if Not Impossible – to Negotiate With Extremists

The stalling of negotiations, meanwhile, displays what needed to be anticipated: negotiations with extremists are mostly inconceivable if not impossible. With the Afghan government and the US, who have provided the Taliban with a seat at the table on the world stage cognizant of the latter, the question is how many concessions any government is inclined to make in order to establish “peace” with extremists who have caused so much suffering and misery to the country.

Moreover, how reliable would such an agreement be in the first place?

Furthermore, with all foreign troops due to withdraw from Afghanistan by May of 2021, the pressure on the Afghan government will continue to increase – likely to the detriment of the peace talks.

L'articolo Intra-Afghan Peace Talks Have Already Stalled proviene da InsideOver.

In a recent report, CNN states that Tehran has been paying bounties to a Taliban-affiliated group in exchange for kills of US and coalition forces in Afghanistan. So far, the bounties have led to six attacks, including a suicide attack on the Bagram US air force base. The report surfaced just months after similar allegations transpired regarding Russia and a similar bounty operation involving the Taliban.

Report: Iran Paid Bounty to Haqqani Network

According to CNN, US intelligence concluded that a foreign actor paid the Haqqani network’s bounty for the December 2019 attack on Bagram, which killed two civilians and injured more than seventy others including two Americans.

The document does not explicitly name the attack’s financier, however, two sources familiar with the intelligence available have confirmed Iran as the actor responsible. Prior to the attack on Bagram, the US killed Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad. Soleimani was the critical perpetrator behind Iran’s terror strategy in the region. According to CNN, US officials cited the alleged Iranian bounty plan as a partial justification for the Soleimani strike, which was confirmed by a current government official and a former senior official.

US Hesitation on Exposing the Bounty

However, by March, the White House decided against taking more specific action in response to the bounty program or publicly condemning Iran or the Taliban for the attack, arguably because the administration did not want to risk progress in the peace talks with the Taliban.

The reports come almost two months after allegations surfaced that Russia is also paying Taliban fighters up to $100,000 per soldier to kill Americans in Afghanistan. The New York Times first reported in June that several US intelligence officials concluded months ago that a Russian military intelligence unit was secretly offering bounties for killing US troops to Taliban-affiliated militants.

According to the paper, US policymakers developed a “menu” of options, from a diplomatic blow to further increases in US sanctions or other undisclosed responses.

A Pentagon investigation into the Russian system is ongoing, while the Kremlin vehemently denied the claims. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, that “Russia would pay an enormous price” if the Kremlin is confirmed to have paid such bounties.

The Attack on Bagram Airbase

Regarding Iran, the attack on Bagram — believed to be the most prominent US military facility in the region — was sophisticated and thus of great concern to officials, as it pointed to vulnerabilities in several US facilities. In the document, officials concluded that the attacker used an improvised explosive device in the attack. After the explosion, ten Taliban fighters exchanged gunfire with local security forces before a US airstrike eliminated them.

While intelligence officials conceded the Haqqani network would not necessarily ask for financial reimbursement for carrying out the attack, they said the funding associated with the attack “is likely to incentivize future high-profile attacks on US and coalition forces.”

In the months following the Bagram attack, US officials from multiple agencies were tasked with investigating the nation’s relationship with the Haqqani network — an Iranian proxy militia — in Afghanistan.

‘A Significant Threat to US Interests’

Investigators concluded that Iran’s relations with the group “pose a significant threat to US interests.” However, in late March, National Security Council officials said that they should not take any steps to remedy the risk as it would likely harm peace talks with the Taliban first brokered by Trump in February.

Trump reportedly considers the peace talks key to achieving his pledge to remove all US troops from Afghanistan with the 2020 elections on the horizon and him trailing in the polls.

However, the issue of foreign actors encouraging the Taliban to resume attacking the US in Afghanistan continues to endure, and the conclusion of the Russian bounty investigation could trigger severe consequences despite the president’s electoral priorities.

L'articolo Report Indicates Iran Offered Money to Taliban to Kill US, Coalition Troops proviene da InsideOver.