The anticipated withdrawal of US and NATO forces from Afghanistan, recently announced for September 11, has raised fears in the Asian country of the failure of peace negotiations and the onset of a new civil war.
US President Joe Biden this week announced his intention to withdraw his nearly 3,500 troops from Afghanistan after weeks of revising the historic Washington-Taliban agreement in Doha last February.
NATO allies will also withdraw their nearly 7,000 troops from May 1.
Both decisions come as Afghan forces, after two decades of conflict with the insurgent formation, struggle to hold their positions despite ongoing losses.
The Taliban does not control any of the 34 provincial capitals, but the group has reduced government control of the national territory to 53.8%, according to the latest available data from US forces released in January 2019.
Insurgents directly control 12% of the territory, mainly in remote and sparsely populated areas, while the rest of the country is considered disputed territory.
CIVIL WAR AND NEW HOSTILITIES
In this scenario, the recent proclamations of several ex-mujahideen commanders or former warlords to fight the Taliban alone, as the insurgent formation intensifies hostilities, have unleashed fears of civil war.
“We have many former jihadist commanders inside and outside the government system who are ready to defend their people in the face of the return of the Taliban,” a political analyst working for the government told Efe, who asked for anonymity.
The leader of the Hazara ethnic group and former warlord Mohammad Mohaqiq, with influence in the center of the Asian country; Ismail Khan, strongman in the Afghan west; and several influential anti-Taliban militias in the north have announced in recent weeks that they are ready for a showdown.
Afghanistan is still fresh from the civil war of the 1990s, in which several mujahideen factions fought to conquer the state after the end of the communist regime.
The announcement of the new withdrawal date for US forces has infuriated the Taliban, who have threatened to abandon stalled peace negotiations in Qatar since September last year and not participate in international conferences such as those scheduled in Turkey last week.
The insurgent formation is demanding that the original May 1 date agreed with former US President Donald Trump in Doha be respected, a demand raising fears of an increase in hostilities.
“When the United States and its allies leave Afghanistan, the Taliban may not find it necessary to continue negotiations and will try to win militarily, so the war will get worse,” political analyst Hafiz Ahmadi told EFE.
The Taliban’s chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Efe that the escalation of the war depends on the political process.
“If there is no progress in the negotiations and the other side continues to refuse our requests, we will certainly continue the war and win by military means,” he said, before declaring that they have 100,000 active fighters without counting the soldiers in reserve. .
THE ROLE OF PAKISTAN
Retired general and political analyst Atiqullah Amarkhil told Efe that “it is certain” that the conflict between the government and the Taliban will intensify, although that does not mean the insurgent group can achieve a military victory.
“I believe neither side can win this war by force, the past twenty years have proved this fact,” he said.
Amarkhil recalled that the Taliban movement emerged under the protection of Pakistan in the 1990s, so the only way the Afghan conflict can be resolved peacefully is that the neighboring country no longer supports the insurgents at all.
The Afghan government and the United States have repeatedly accused Pakistan of training and funding the Taliban, something Islamabad has always denied.
Political analyst Safiullah Mullakhil, for his part, stressed that a possible increase in hostilities in the absence of foreign forces could pave the way for regional and international terrorist networks to recover in the Asian country.
THE GOVERNMENT STRESSES THE ROLE OF THE ARMY
Despite doubts, the Afghan government has sought in recent weeks to underline its confidence in the security forces and the police, made up of approximately 350,000 personnel, including 40,000 members of the special forces.
“Afghanistan does not need US combat troops on the ground, it needs support for its armed forces,” said the Afghan National Security Council.
96% of operations in recent months have been conducted autonomously by Afghan forces, the Council noted, while the Asian country’s president, Ashraf Ghani, confirmed that the United States will continue to provide military assistance despite the withdrawal of your forces.