Tag: Afghanistan War

Perilous Situation for Afghan Allies Left Behind Shows a Refugee System That’s Not up to the Job

Had the visa process worked better, more Afghan allies might have been able to flee possible deadly retaliation by the Taliban.

President Joe Biden has hailed the end of the US engagement in Afghanistan as a historic achievement, with 120,000 people evacuated by air. Behind the widely viewed scenes of chaos at the Hamid Karzai International Airport, a massive effort of volunteers and nongovernmental organisations used social media to help identify, locate and advocate for Afghans desperate to leave the country, using social media. It has been characterised as a “digital Dunkirk” – in reference to the mass evacuation of Allied soldiers by sea during World War II.

Nonetheless, the president and his administration have weathered considerable criticism about the execution of the long-planned withdrawal, much of it focused on the complex and frustrating process for Afghan allies who needed visas in order to leave the country and head to the US.

In mid-July, US Embassy staff in Kabul raised the alarm about the Taliban’s advances, recommending that the administration take action to speed up the protection of Afghan allies by granting them what’s called a “special immigrant visa,” also known as the SIV.

Had the visa process worked better, more Afghan allies might have been able to flee possible deadly retaliation by the Taliban.

“The SIV program is obviously not designed to accommodate what we just did, in evacuating over 100,000 people,” US secretary of defence Lloyd Austin explicitly acknowledged in a press conference at the end of the airlift.

And the perilous situation of Afghans who want to flee now, but can’t, is a reminder that populations face terrible danger in conflict zones across the globe – but aren’t able to make their way to safety in other countries.

Refugee protection

SIVs allow Afghan and Iraqi interpreters and translators for the US military whose work “placed a target on their backs” to come live in America.

In 2009, a distinct Afghan SIV program was established by the US and was originally designed to provide 7,500 visas over five years. The quota does not include family members who are entitled to come to the US.

For years, advocates have raised concerns about serious delays with processing visas – up to 3 ½ years at one point. Some advocacy groups even sued the federal government to break the logjam.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration slowed the review process even more. That move was part of a larger policy to allow fewer refugees into the country.

A question of planning

A backlog of 17,000 cases in the Afghan SIV programme faced the Biden administration in January 2021. Throughout the spring, advocates urged the administration to take more urgent steps to expand the program’s focus and get Afghan allies to the US faster and in greater numbers.

It was not until mid-July 2021 that Operation Allies Refuge was launched by President Biden to evacuate SIV applicants who were in later stages of the process.

By the end of July, Congress authorised the approval of 8,000 additional visas for the applicants, waived the onerous pre-approval medical examination requirements and removed other restrictions. In early August, the administration expanded protection to a larger category of people – known as “P2” – such as those who worked for nongovernmental organisations and media outlets in Afghanistan supported by the US.

But by August 13, evacuation of SIV applicants was deemphasized to make way for US citizen evacuation from Afghanistan. Government insiders and advocates criticised the US State Department at that time for delays in processing SIV applications and failure to coordinate with the Pentagon to get applicants into the Kabul airport.

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin discusses the end of the military mission in Afghanistan during a news conference at the Pentagon in Washington, US, September 1, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein

Other options

Defence secretary Austin also acknowledged that the SIV program was “designed to be a slow process.”

Immigration experts have pointed out that the Biden administration had a number of other options, based on prior experiences with Haitians and Cubans as well as Vietnamese, Iraqi Kurd and Kosovar Albanian refugees, to expand and speed up refugee protection.

Afghans are eligible, for example, for quicker forms of refugee protection, such as humanitarian parole, which allows individuals who face dangerous conditions in their home country to gain emergency entry into the US, though the status is temporary and without benefits. Using the regular US Refugee Admissions Program would have required raising the quotas and dealing with its own backlog.

In the end, many of the 100,000 or so Afghans who were trying to get SIVs or other forms of protection were evacuated to other countries, to what’s called “lily pad sites,” for further security screenings before entry into the US.

Left behind

The estimates of individuals remaining in Afghanistan who are at risk for Taliban persecution are staggering and difficult to confirm.

Before the evacuation ended, advocates claimed that 65,000 SIV-eligible applicants and their families remained, while eligible P2 applicants and their families were estimated in a range from almost 200,000 to, potentially, millions.

These numbers do not account for Afghans who worked at the forefront of nation building, including for the government, women’s and human rights organisations, the media and the United Nations mission. Even before the fall of Kabul, Afghans were the second-largest refugee population globally, after Syrians.

And what these people – especially women and girls – face is currently extremely precarious. A new government is taking shape that represents the hard-line Taliban leadership of the past.

While the Taliban have sought to reassure the international community that they will allow Afghans to leave the country and respect human rights, recent violence against women’s rights protesters and reports of human rights abuses belie the posturing. The ISIS-K attack on the Kabul airport indicates how fragile Taliban security could be. Law and security scholars have warned against global recognition of a terrorist-controlled government.

Amid a growing humanitarian disaster involving hunger and extreme poverty, the United Nations estimates that half a million more Afghans might seek refugee status by the end of 2021.

While declaring an end to US military deployments to support nation building, President Biden has asserted his commitment to make human rights central to his foreign policy.

Minimising the military’s role should be welcome to experts who contend that it is the US-led war on terror that failed in Afghanistan, not nation building.

How exactly this helps Afghans who want to flee but haven’t been able to yet isn’t clear. And how to ensure the wide-scale protection of populations facing mass atrocity and human rights violations without the threat of US-led coalition military power also remains uncertain – in Afghanistan and anywhere else across the globe.The Conversation

Shelley Inglis, executive director, University of Dayton Human Rights Center, University of Dayton.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

India to Evacuate Personnel From Mazar-e-Sharif Consulate in Afghanistan by Tonight

Reports say the Taliban is advancing in the region and intense clashes are currently underway.

New Delhi: India is pulling its personnel from the last fully-staffed consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif in Balkh province, where intense clashes resumed between Taliban and government forces near the provincial capital.

The Indian consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif posted on its Twitter account that a special plane would be arriving on Tuesday night. “Any Indian nationals in and around Mazar-e-Sharif are requested to leave for India in the special flight scheduled to depart late today evening,” said the consulate’s tweet.

India had four consulates in Afghanistan. Two of them in Herat city and Jalalabad were closed down last year due to the security situation and pandemic reasons.

Last month, India withdrew around 50 personnel from the consulate in Kandahar by sending a special Indian Air Force flight. Technically, the consulate in Kandahar remains open as local Afghan staff have taken over day-to-day functions so far.

For now, a similar number of India-based personnel will also be withdrawn from Mazar-e-Sharif, which will also remain open with help from local employees.

The Indian embassy issued another advisory for Indian nationals to leave “before commercial air services are discontinued to their place of stay/visit in Afghanistan”.

The embassy also urged all Indian nationals working in Indian and foreign companies to leave the country. “Indian nationals working for Afghan or foreign companies in Afghanistan should immediately request their employer to facilitate their travel from project site to India.”

In the last few days, Taliban has taken over five provincial capitals: Zaranj in Nimruz, Takhar’s Taloqan, Sheberghan in Jawzjan, Sar-e-Pul and Aybak, capital of Samangan. The targeting of cities has marked a new phase in Taliban’s military strategy which has escalated the fighting to urban areas in Afghanistan.

The violence has intensified as the deadline for all foreign troops withdrawing from Afghanistan looms closer. While the battlefields remains active, there is stalemate in diplomacy, with intra-Afghan talks yet to restart.

Also read: Afghans in India Anxious About Taliban Advance Back Home

On August 11, the four ‘Troika plus’ countries – US, Iran, Russia and Pakistan – are scheduled to meet in Doha to push both sides to start talking and reach and agreement before the final deadline of withdrawal of foreign troops.

Mazar-e-Sharif, Balkh’s capital city, was one of the three new cities where the Taliban had increased pressure on local security forces, said Tolo News. The Indian consulate had jurisdiction over five provinces, three of which are now already under Taliban control.

According to Voice of America, there is anxiety inside Mazar-e-Sharif amidst reports of Taliban advancing in their military campaign. With videos showing fire in several parts of the city, residents have been preparing for an exodus, with ATMs having lines of people waiting to withdraw their money.

As per the report, the central part of the city has become deserted, with shops shutting down and business coming to a standstill.

US Troops Withdrawal from Afghanistan, 30-44% complete: CENTCOM

President Joe Biden aims to remove 100% of its military from the country by September 11 this year.

Washington: The US Central Command has said that an estimated 30-44% of American troops had been withdrawn from Afghanistan until last month, inching closer to achieve President Joe Biden’s ambitious target of 100% removal of its military from the war-torn country by September 11 this year.

The US has also officially handed over six facilities to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defence, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in an update on the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan till May 31.

US Central Command estimates that we have completed between 30-44% of the entire retrograde process, it said on Tuesday.

President Biden in April announced that all American troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by September 11 this year, thus bringing an end to the country’s longest war spanning across two decades.

Since the President’s decision, the Department of Defence has retrograded the equivalent of approximately 300 C-17 loads of material out of Afghanistan and have turned nearly 13,000 pieces of equipment to the Defence Logistics Agency for disposition, CENTCOM said.

The US and the Taliban signed a landmark deal in Doha on February 29, 2020 to bring lasting peace in war-torn Afghanistan and allow US troops to return home from America’s longest war.

Under the US-Taliban pact, the US has agreed to withdraw all its soldiers from Afghanistan in 14 months.

There are currently 2,500 American troops left in Afghanistan, the lowest level of American forces in the war-torn country since 2001.

Since the US-led invasion that ousted the Taliban after the September 11, 2001 attacks, America has spent more than USD 1 trillion in fighting and rebuilding in Afghanistan.

About 2,400 US soldiers have been killed, along with tens of thousands of Afghan troops, Taliban insurgents and Afghan civilians.

(PTI)

US Withdrawal From Afghanistan Means India, China and Russia Need To Cooperate

As the Taliban’s plans to reestablish a totalitarian state become more evident, regional powers need to support a sovereign Afghan state.

Most of the Western media coverage of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan has focused on discussing the historic moment in the light of American interests and possible security, economic, and diplomatic implications for Washington and its transatlantic allies.

But the real effects of the US departure and what it represents in a broader historical sense will be most acutely felt by Afghanistan and its neighbours, particularly its immediate neighbour China and near neighbours India and Russia – powers that will shape the future of a part of the world where most of humanity lives.

It is not surprising that Western media in general and US media in particular focuses on marking the American withdrawal as a closure to the so-called war on terrorism, which began two decades ago with tall claims of eradicating the scourge of terrorism from the face of the earth. Not surprising, they no longer bother to cover the Taliban’s brutalities and are content to view the fundamentalist movement as another Afghan faction.

The closure of that war, which defined the beginning of the 21st century, however, is unceremonious and showcases Washington’s new approach to differentiate between global and local terror networks as separate categories that will now be tackled with vastly different approaches.

Also Read: Pentagon Report Suggests the US-Taliban Deal Was Inked in Afghan Blood

Unfortunately, this kind of thinking has proved catastrophic for Afghanistan and will have far-reaching consequences for its near and far neighbours. Just consider the way Washington negotiated its departure with the Taliban: For nearly 18 months, American diplomats negotiated a largely secret deal with the Taliban that completely bypassed its ally, the Afghan government. In the end, this proved disastrous for the Afghan state by freeing thousands of its prisoners and most significantly granting the Taliban legitimacy, which the group is now using to recreate its Islamic Emirate through military conquest.

The idea of talking with the Taliban was not new. It was championed by former Afghan president Hamid Karzai in the years after the demise of the Taliban regime in late 2001. The initial Afghan-led initiatives for talking with the Taliban were based on the assumption that the Taliban had learnt its lesson from the monumental failures of its so-called emirate in the 1990s, their relations with international terror syndicates – Al-Qaeda, in particular – and their almost complete international isolation. Pakistan, the Taliban’s main mentor, supporter, and guide, gave the impression that the Taliban lacked experience in politics, governance, and diplomacy in the 1990s and that by now it has realised its past mistakes.

Ironically, the February 2020 Doha deal between Washington and the Taliban did little to find and promote a peaceful resolution to the war in Afghanistan or even ending the war on terrorism. Instead, it became a justification for unconditional US withdrawal and has actually incentivised terrorism and violence.

Afghans remove broken glass from a window of their house near the site of a suicide bomb blast by a Taliban militant in Kabul, Afghanistan April 21, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Omar Sobhani TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

The deal not only bestows the legitimacy and credibility of a peace partner on the Taliban but for all practical purposes the group’s Islamic Emirate – with all its brutal past – now takes priority over an Afghan state established on the basis of a constitution and international law. Strangely enough, the US has had no problem with the Taliban continuing to shed Afghan blood on a large scale both during the negotiations for the Doha deal and since its signing. Despite dozens of terrorist attacks, including suicide bombers in cities across Afghanistan, Washington failed to suspend talks with the Taliban. During the course of talks, the Taliban would claim multiple suicide attacks one week and the next would be sitting with their American interlocutors in Doha discussing peace.

Using the Doha deal and US pressure on the Afghan government, the Taliban was able to secure the release of 5,000 of its fighters, who were mostly arrested or captured by the Afghan forces as they planned attacks or fought along frontlines. The majority of them have returned to fight against Afghan security forces. But the Taliban were so emboldened by the agreement that they are now demanding the release of more fighters who are still in government custody. Even as their leaders engaged with diplomats and toured various capitals, the Taliban has refused to stop carrying out terrorist attacks and engage in a meaningful dialogue with the Afghan state. Most significantly, the militants are extremely reluctant to declare a cease-fire. Yet their leaders demand to be taken off terror and sanctions lists.

Evidence on the ground shows that today’s Taliban is no different from that of the 1990s. Assessing three aspects of the group’s character can help clarify their current and future role. First is the Taliban’s reliance on violence and terrorism; after a quarter-century since its emergence, the ragtag militia is still a war machine wielding violence as its main tool. It has been more or less a perpetual IRA without a Sinn Fein or political wing.

This is important to understand and explains why even after pledging to relinquish all ties with Al-Qaeda in the Doha agreement, reports by the UN and even various US government agencies have established Al-Qaeda’s presence and symbiotic relationship with the Taliban. Pakistani terrorist organisations such as the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e Taiba, and others have historic ties with the Taliban. Some of their cadres are still embedded with the group. Across Afghanistan, hundreds or perhaps thousands of Pakistani, Arab, and Central Asian fighters are part of Taliban units.

Secondly, the Taliban’s culture of governance has not evolved. The militants still abhor the modern state system and democracy. They don’t hide their intention to restore their brutal totalitarian system, which would require the dismantling of the current Afghan state to recreate a state based on their own narrow interpretation of Shari’a. They have stepped up the process of Talibanisation by closing girls’ schools and severely restricting the freedom of movement for women. They are obsessed with reversing the growing urbanisation, expanding education, and the emergence of civil society during the past two decades.

Also Read: Women’s Groups in India, Pakistan Have a Role to Play in Afghanistan’s Reconstruction

Thus, instead of developing its ideology and organisation to bring them in consonance with the changed social conditions, the Taliban has resorted to reversing these conditions by targeted killings of intellectuals, professionals, journalists, and teachers. They are also targeting roads, bridges, communication installations, and dams to reverse the gains of the past two decades and push Afghanistan back into the stone age.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) speaks about seven women from Afghanistan who were assassinated for their efforts to improve the lives of Afghans, during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, April 27, 2021. Photo: T.J. Kirkpatrick/Pool via REUTERS

The third and most important aspect of the Taliban is its enduring relationship with Pakistan. While the Taliban rank and file are mainly Afghan graduates from thousands of Pakistani religious seminaries, their Pakistani teachers are their ideological mentors. Ironically, their mentors in Pakistan, mostly Islamist clerics, champion democracy in Pakistan but are against the same in Afghanistan. Historically, most Taliban fighters were trained by the Pakistani security forces who regard the Taliban as their instrument for achieving strategic depth in Afghanistan and decimating Pashtun nationalism inside Pakistan.

Their relationship is so close that for all practical purposes, the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate has spent the past two decades based in Pakistan. Even now, when the Taliban claims to control wide swaths of territory in Afghanistan, their political and military leadership shelters in Pakistan. Islamabad enjoys much greater control over the Taliban than, for example, Tehran has over Hezbollah. This is because of the geographical proximity and the fact that the Taliban leadership and cadre depend on Pakistani sanctuaries. Pakistan’s security agencies have punished Taliban leaders and commanders who defy them. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the top Taliban negotiator, was imprisoned in Pakistan for many years while Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansur, Taliban founder Mullah Omar’s successor, was killed in Pakistani. Pakistani officials take great pleasure in manipulating the Taliban. Senior officials take credit for bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table but express frustration over the militants’ “defiance” and insist they are capable of making independent decisions.

Understanding these dynamics of the Taliban is key for Afghanistan’s future. It also weighs heavily on the future of China, India, Russia, and regional powers. Beijing is already contemplating sending peacekeepers to Afghanistan to fend off a possible volcano of Islamist terrorist groups whose presence will channel the Uyghur discontent into a security nightmare for Beijing. If China’s cold war with the West intensifies, Afghanistan might turn into a quagmire for Xi Jinping. A resurgent pan-Turkism will also likely join forces with a new jihad against China, which is now among the largest investors in all the countries bordering Afghanistan.

Russia has foolishly joined the bandwagon of trying to reimpose some kind of Taliban rule on Afghanistan. But unlike Syria, the Kremlin has no real influence in Afghanistan. No one in Afghanistan will accept a return of the Russian military, and Moscow lacks domestic political support and the economic wherewithal to nurture armed proxies in Afghanistan.

India, on the other hand, has so far been the most reluctant to join the rush to embrace the Taliban. Its domestic difficulties and regional rivalries amid the coronavirus pandemic have prevented it from forcefully confronting the possibility of a Taliban return to power. But it won’t be able to remain indifferent to another state collapse in Afghanistan.

Beijing, New Delhi, and Moscow need to embrace a key lesson from over four decades of war in Afghanistan. They must step up to support a sovereign Afghan state that can police itself and protect Afghanistan from invasions in the form of proxy wars. Such a state can best guarantee the security interests of its neighbours and protect the region from the devastating impact of a precipitous US withdrawal rooted in the fallacious notion that, unlike Al-Qaeda’s global terror network, local groups such as the Taliban are not a threat to Washington and the international order.

Afrasiab Khattak, a former Pakistani Senator, headed the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the country’s leading rights watchdog. He has endured exile and imprisonment during his career spanning more than five decades in politics, human rights advocacy, law and media.

Taliban, Afghan President Declare Three-Day Eid Ceasefire

Last month, the Taliban rejected a government call for a ceasefire across Afghanistan for Ramadan, saying a truce was “not rational”.

Kabul: The Taliban declared a three-day Eid ceasefire in Afghanistan starting Sunday, via a tweet on Saturday from the hardline Islamist group, and the country’s president said the government would reciprocate.

The move came as fighting between the two sides had intensified despite the coronavirus pandemic.

“Do not carry out any offensive operations against the enemy anywhere, if any action is taken against you by the enemy, defend yourself,” Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, tweeted. He added that the ceasefire was declared solely for Eid festivities marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Also read: Its Anatomy Keeps Changing But What Will it Take for War to End?

Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani welcomed the Taliban’s ceasefire announcement and extended the offer of peace.

“As Commander-in-Chief I have instructed ANDSF (Afghan National Defense and Security Forces) to comply with the three-days truce and to defend only if attacked,” he said in a tweet.

Last month, the Taliban rejected a government call for a ceasefire across Afghanistan for Ramadan, saying a truce was “not rational” as they ramped up attacks on Afghan forces.

At least 146 civilians were killed and 430 wounded by the Taliban during Ramadan, Javid Faisal, a spokesman for the country’s main intelligence and security office in Kabul, said on Saturday.

Almost 4,000 Afghans Killed or Wounded in First Six Months of 2019: UN Report

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in its latest report ground raids and clashes caused the most civilian casualties, followed by bomb attacks and air strikes.

Kabul: At least 3,812 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in the first half of 2019 in the war against militant groups, including a big increase in the number of casualties caused by government and NATO-led troops, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

The latest casualty figures were released as talks between the Taliban and US officials to end the 18-year Afghan war entered an important stage, with US negotiators aiming to reach a peace deal before September 1.

However, the war has raged on despite the diplomatic efforts, forcing civilians to live under the constant threat of being targeted by militants or being caught up in ground fighting, or becoming inadvertent victims of air strikes by Afghan government and NATO-led forces.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in its latest report ground raids and clashes caused the most civilian casualties, followed by bomb attacks and air strikes.

Taliban and Islamic State fighters killed 531 Afghans and wounded 1,437 between January 1 and June 30. The hardline Islamist groups deliberately targeted 985 civilians, including government officials, tribal elders, aid workers, and religious scholars, UNAMA said in its report.

It said pro-government forces killed 717 Afghans and wounded 680 in the six months to June 30, a 31% increase from the corresponding period in 2018.

Also read: Kabul: 20 Killed, 50 Injured in Attack on Vice Presidential Candidate’s Office

At least 144 women and 327 children were killed and more than 1,000 wounded across the country.

Air strikes caused 519 civilian casualties, 150 of whom were children.

“Parties to the conflict may give differing explanations for recent trends, each designed to justify their own military tactics,” UNAMA human rights chief Richard Bennett said.

“The fact remains that only a determined effort to avoid civilian harm, not just by abiding by international humanitarian law but also by reducing the intensity of the fighting, will decrease the suffering of civilian Afghans,” he said.

The US and other NATO troops are stationed in Afghanistan as part of a mission to train, assist and advise Afghan forces and to carry out counter-terrorism operations.

Colonel Sonny Leggett, a spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan, rejected the methods and findings used by UNAMA, saying the collection of evidence by US forces was “more thorough, evidentiary and accurate”.

Leggett, however, did not give any US military figures for civilian casualties but said US forces worked closely with Afghan security forces to prevent them.

“We follow the highest standards of accuracy and accountability and always work to avoid harm to civilian non-combatants,” Leggett said.

The US is trying to negotiate a deal under which foreign forces would pull out in return for security guarantees by the Taliban, including a pledge that the country will not become a safe haven for terror groups.

The Taliban control or contest half the country, more than at any time since being overthrown by US-led Afghan forces in late 2001, but they have rejected calls for a ceasefire until all foreign forces leave Afghanistan.

The Afghan government and the Taliban were not immediately available to comment on the UN report.

(Reuters)

Is the US-Pakistan Transactional Relationship Back on Track?

While ostensibly achieving a short-term objective, this kind of relationship leaves many geopolitical sores festering and fulminating.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s US visit is being dubbed as a reset in the two countries’ much strained relations.

The visit was well-choreographed by the Pakistani civil and military bureaucrats, and partisans of Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) in the US. His address to the overseas Pakistanis at the Capital One arena, in Washington, D.C. was scripted to emulate the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2014 rally at the Madison Square Garden, New York. Geared to energise only his political base and not the Pakistani diaspora at large, it was an impressive show, put on with military precision.

The eventual icing on the cake was an unexpected – and untrue – remark by President Donald Trump about an imaginary offer to him by Modi to be the “mediator or arbitrator in the Kashmir” imbroglio. The remark flew in the face of 47 years of Indian diplomatic position since the Simla Agreement that the two countries must resolve the issue(s) bilaterally.

Also read: True or False, Trump Kashmir Bombshell Raises Questions About Modi’s Political Judgment

As expected, it was rejected by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs within the hour, but Trump had handed Khan and his army backers something to gloat about at home. The other, and even more repugnant and callous, comment by Trump was about wiping Afghanistan off the face of the earth “to end the war there”. The Afghan presidency immediately asked for an explanation for the outrageous, uncalled for tirade.

Trump’s desperation on Afghanistan

That these untruthful and vile comments were made in the presence of Khan, whose country is at loggerheads with both India and Afghanistan, smack not just of Trump’s ignorance – as if any proof were needed – but also of his desperation and singular focus to cut and run from Afghanistan. While the war in Afghanistan is presently not on the US domestic political radar, Trump wishes to put it up there to boast about ending it, in his re-election bid next year.

His narrow focus appears to be a withdrawal, after a hastily-reached agreement with the Taliban that allows for a face-saving lull between the US exit and resumption of the jihadi terror. The plan seems to be a replica of Richard Nixon’s so-called decent interval, which actually led to an indecently humiliating withdrawal from Vietnam.

Also read: Will an Imposed Peace End All Peace in Afghanistan?

The arrogant gaffes also marked the limits and shortcomings of Afghan and Indian diplomacy, especially when their interlocutor is a man who probably won’t be able to locate Kashmir on the map, let alone know the history of the conflict and the respective positions India and Pakistan have held. Trump does not realise – or doesn’t care – that the 10 million Afghans that he threatened to bomb are US allies. He is well-known to repeat whatever the last person might have spoken in his ear, and that person clearly wasn’t someone who understood the nuances of war or peace in South Asia.

Not preempting this was certainly a failure of the Afghan and Indian diplomatic outreach in D.C. India has been unduly coy about its interests in Afghanistan, while the Afghan diplomatic machinery in the US capital is perilously phlegmatic, leaving the field wide open to the adversaries.

US troops in Afghanistan. Image: Reuters/Files

While Imran Khan is somewhat of a maverick himself, his handlers appear to have coached him well. He remained extremely deferential to Trump, acted quite restrained and measured, and massaged the president’s ego enough to make him blurt out the mediation offer on Kashmir, which Modi had not sought in the first place.

Pandering to Trump’s self-aggrandising tendencies was a slick move and successfully extracted from him a statement, which is in sync with one of the pivots of Pakistani security establishment’s Kashmir policy: internationalise the Kashmir issue and try to regain the leverage lost in the Simla Agreement of 1972 and then the Lahore Declaration of 1999. In the grand scheme of things, this won’t be more than a flash in the pan and not move Indian diplomatic position an inch, but for now it did manage to make headlines in the subcontinent, though none in the US.

Pakistan’s growing economic woes

Why exactly was Khan, chaperoned by his benefactor – incumbent Pakistani army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa – so terribly keen to first seek this US visit, purportedly through the brutal Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s aegis? After all, Khan has riled up crowds by posturing against the US, its war in Afghanistan and its pursuit of the Taliban inside Pakistan, for the past 15 years. What gives now?

The answer lies in Pakistan’s tanking economy, and more importantly, the pinch that the country’s oversized army is feeling because of that. Pakistan army’s Imran Khan project has virtually gone belly up, especially in case of the economy. Not even the PTI partisans who thronged Khan’s D.C. rally are buying into his voodoo economics. The country’s coffers were precariously depleted, consumer confidence at the lowest ebb, exports declining and the foreign direct investment negligible.

Also read: New India and Naya Pakistan Mirror Each Other

Pakistan borrowed a record $16 billion in the past year, of which $13.6 billion in international loans were taken out by the army-backed Khan government. China, Pakistan’s so-called all-weather friend, remained a stingy paymaster in the crunch, forcing the Khan government to beg the Arab sheikhdoms and kingdoms for oil credits and hard cash.

But despite the lifeline thrown by the Arabs, Pakistan was forced to go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the 22nd time in its history. In departure from its past, the army had to “voluntarily” freeze its budget – including salaries and pensions – which when adjusted for the rupee free fall against the dollar meant an effective decrease in defence spending.

With a faltering economy, combined with the imminent possibility of getting blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Pakistan’s economic choices were extremely limited. Seeking a rapprochement with the US was inevitable and hence the Khan-Bajwa trip to Trump’s court.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan attends a session during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan June 14, 2019. Image: Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via Reuters/File Photo

Having said that, the Pakistani army establishment played its cards rather well and timed its supremely vulnerable position with Trump’s desperation in a way that has the potential to reap some financial rewards at home, and a mega bonus in Afghanistan. If the Pakistan army can persuade the Trump government to release some of the Coalition Support Funds that the US has withheld as a punitive measure, it would ease up the Pakistani junta a bit.

The jackpot, however, would be if, in a replay of the 1990s, the US decided to pack up and leave Afghanistan to Pakistan’s devices. This is exactly what French scholar Christophe Jaffrelot, citing his compatriot political scientist Jean-François Médard, had described as military or security-related form of clientelism, wherein an exchange of favours takes place between a patron and a client (state) that lack any common ground other than an immediate or short-term transactional goal. Pakistan and the US are used to such a transactional relationship since the 1950s, where Pakistan has offered its services in South Asia, in exchange for helping the US achieve its perceived tactical or strategic objectives.

A relationship that’s unlikely to last

The fundamental flaw with the US reviving a transactional relationship with Pakistan, specifically its army that has a chokehold on the country’s polity, is that while ostensibly achieving a short-term objective, it leaves many geopolitical sores festering and fulminating. But more than that, it erroneously accepts the cosmetic changes in the Pakistan army’s behaviour as course-correction.

For example,Trump wrongly and ineptly claiming that terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Tayyabba’s head honcho Hafiz Muhammad Saeed was arrested after a ten-year search, gives credence to the Pakistan army backers’ claim that they are going after the jihadists. The obvious fact is that Saeed has not just been living large in Pakistan, but leading prayers in the country’s largest cricket stadium in Lahore and conducting his organisational activities without any hinderance. That this was his ninth “arrest” speaks volumes about Saeed being the army’s most-favoured jihadist, who works hand-in-glove with his military masters.

The present arrest was undoubtedly showcased for the US consumption, with an eye on averting the FATF sanction and consolidating the IMF lending, respectively. The crux of the issue, however, is that transactional lifelines thrown to the Pakistan army and its political façades like Imran Khan, do absolutely nothing to induce change in their geopolitical game-plan, which in turn perpetuates horrific political and economic policies domestically. The biggest price of this disastrous status quo is paid by the Pakistani people, who continue to languish on the precarious rungs of the Human Development Index ladder.

Also read: Pakistan’s Democratic Transition Is Being Reversed, Say Civil Society Members

Irony is that while Khan, serving as the fig leaf for his army backers during the US visit, pledged peace in Afghanistan and literally beseeched Trump to intercede with India over Kashmir, back home in Pakistan those politicians who actually sued for peace within the country and across the borders remain incarcerated.

Two former prime ministers, Mian Nawaz Sharif and his associate Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, are in prison over cooked-up allegations of graft. Two progressive Pashtun members of parliament Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar, who represent the districts adjoining Afghanistan and are outspoken critics of the Taliban and vociferous proponents of peace, are languishing in jail under fabricated charges of attacking the army post.

The Pakistani media is under the army boot and forced to censor and self-censor any criticism of the army and its policies. The press and tele-media are forced to black-out opposition rallies, while false charges are filed against the participants of those protests. Contrary to Khan’s flat-out lies about civic freedoms at home, his junta-propped government’s domestic policies are the hallmark of fascist regimes, which oppress the populace at home and pursue hegemonistic designs over neighbours.

In the event the potential revival of the transactional relationship between the US and Pakistan, especially its army, were to go through, it would fall on its face in due course of time, just like every previous such arrangement has. Clientelism can only deliver short-term gains for both sides, for it is based on tactical goals, not on congruence of vision and confluence of interests. The task may appear uphill, but history remains on the side of pro-democracy forces in Pakistan.

Mohammad Taqi is a Pakistani-American columnist. He tweets @mazdaki.

Afghanistan Seeks Explanation on Trump Talk of ‘Wiping It Out’

The US president said he could end the Afghan war in ten days by “wiping out Afghanistan”, but did not want to kill 10 million people.

Kabul: Afghanistan called on Tuesday for an explanation of comments by US President Donald Trump in which he said he could end the Afghan war in just ten days by “wiping out Afghanistan” but did not want to “kill 10 million people”.

Trump‘s remarks followed a meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan at the White House on Monday, during which Trump voiced optimism that Pakistan could help broker a political settlement to end the nearly 18-year-old war in Afghanistan.

The comment about wiping out Afghanistan prompted a stiff response from its president Ashraf Ghani, who issued a statement. Afghanistan has been excluded from talks between the US and the Taliban, and the country accuses Pakistan of supporting the insurgency.

“The Afghan nation has not and will never allow any foreign power to determine its fate,” the presidential palace said in a statement.

“While the Afghan government supports the U.S. efforts for ensuring peace in Afghanistan, the government underscores that foreign heads of state cannot determine Afghanistan’s fate in absence of the Afghan leadership,” it said.

Also read: Misguided Talks With the Taliban Won’t Bring Peace to Afghanistan

It called for clarification of Trump‘s statement.

During his comments in Washington, Trump said that Pakistan was helping the US “extricate” itself from Afghanistan, where the US was acting as a “policeman” rather than fighting a war.

“If we wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan and win it, I could win that war in a week. I just don’t want to kill 10 million people,” Trump told reporters at the White House where he was hosting a visit by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.

“I have plans on Afghanistan that, if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. It would be gone,” he said.

“It would be over in – literally, in 10 days. And I don’t want to do – I don’t want to go that route.”

Trump‘s comments could further complicate efforts to reach a peace deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who travels to Kabul on Tuesday to continue meetings, said on Twitter that Trump had reiterated the need for a negotiated peace.

“There is no reasonable military solution to the war in Afghanistan, and that peace must be achieved through a political settlement,” Khalilzad said.

(Reuters) 

Donald Trump Asks for Pakistan’s ‘Full Support’ in Talks With the Taliban

Trump said in a letter to Imran Khan that he “recognises that Pakistan has the ability to deny the Taliban sanctuary on its territory,” a senior Trump administration official said.

Washington: US President Donald Trump has asked for Pakistan‘s help with faltering Afghan peace talks in a letter to new Prime Minister Imran Khan in which he made clear that Islamabad’s assistance was “fundamental” to the health of the two countries’ strained relationship, a senior Trump administration official said.

The US president wants to end the 17-year-old conflict between Afghan security forces and the Taliban, who are fighting to drive out international forces and reestablish their version of strict Islamic law after their 2001 ouster.

The administration official, who did not want to be identified, said on Monday that Trump requested “Pakistan‘s full support” for the US effort to advance the Afghan peace process and for US Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad’s trip to the region.

Trump also said in the letter to Khan that he “recognises that Pakistan has the ability to deny the Taliban sanctuary on its territory,” the official said.”The letter also makes clear that Pakistan’s assistance with the Afghan peace process is fundamental to building an enduring US-Pakistan partnership,” the official said.

Also Read: Trump’s Twitter War With Imran Khan Meant to Force Cooperation on Afghan Peace Process

The Pakistani foreign ministry had a different take on the letter, saying Trump asked for its “support and facilitation” in negotiating an end to the war, and offered to renew bilateral ties.

Officially allies in fighting terrorism, Pakistan and the US have a complicated relationship, bound by Washington’s dependence on Pakistan to supply its troops in Afghanistan, where the US still has 14,000 troops, but plagued by accusations Islamabad is playing a double game.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. Credit: Reuters/Athit Perawongmetha

US officials have long been pushing Pakistan to lean on Taliban leaders, who Washington says are based inside Pakistan, to bring them to the negotiating table. Pakistani officials deny offering safe havens to the Afghan Taliban and say their influence on the group has waned over the years.

Trump appointed Afghan-born US diplomat Khalilzad as special envoy tasked with pushing through peace talks.

Khalilzad said last month he hoped a deal would be reached by April 2019.

But Afghan Taliban militants said they had not accepted any deadline and said a three-day meeting in Qatar between their leaders and Khalilzad ended with no agreement.

Khalilzad on Sunday began an eight-country tour, including Pakistan, Russia and Qatar, to promote peace and convince the Taliban to join negotiations.

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday that the war in Afghanistan had gone on for long enough.

“We are looking for every responsible nation to support peace in the subcontinent and across this war in Afghanistan,” Mattis told reporters. “It is time for everyone to get on board.”

Also Read: What Talking to the Taliban Means

Trump has been clear that he wants to bring home US troops who remain in Afghanistan as part of Resolute Support and a separate counter-terrorism mission aimed against militant groups such as al Qaeda and Islamic State.

“President Trump has also acknowledged that the war had cost both USA and Pakistan. He has emphasised that Pakistan and USA should explore opportunities to work together and renew partnership,” Pakistan‘s foreign ministry said in a statement.

It added that Pakistan was committed to playing “a facilitation role in good faith”.

Last month, Trump said Pakistan doesn’t “do a damn thing” for the US despite billions of dollars in US aid.

He defended cutting aid to Islamabad and also suggested Pakistani authorities knew Osama bin Laden’s location prior to his killing by US troops in a raid inside Pakistan in 2011.

Khan hit back by saying the US should not blame Pakistan for its failings in Afghanistan.

Last week, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said he had formed a 12-strong team to negotiate peace with the Taliban but the implementation of any deal would take at least five years.

(Reuters)

US Air Strike Kills 30 Afghan Civilians, Officials Say

Afghanistan’s NATO-led force said Afghan government forces and US advisers came under fire from Taliban fighters in a compound in Garmsir district and called in an air strike, but the ground forces were not aware of any civilians in or near the compound.

Lashkar Gah: At least 30 Afghan civilians were killed in US air strikes in the Afghan province of Hemland, official and residents of the area said on Wednesday, the latest casualties from a surge in air operations aimed at driving the Taliban into talks.

Afghanistan’s NATO-led force said Afghan government forces and US advisers came under fire from Taliban fighters in a compound in Garmsir district and called in an air strike, but the ground forces were not aware of any civilians in or near the compound.

Helmand provincial governor Mohammad Yasin Khan said troops had called in air strikes against Taliban fighters in Garmsir, causing both civilian and Taliban casualties.

A resident of the area called Mohammadullah said the clash began late on Tuesday.

“Foreign forces bombed the area and the bombs hit my brother’s house,” he said.

He said women and 16 children were among the dead.

Another resident, Feda Mohammad, said some victims were still buried in the rubble of the compound.

“The area is under the control of Taliban but all of the victims of last night’s bombing are civilians,” he said.

The NATO-led Resolute Support forces said Afghan forces and U.S. advisers came under fire from Taliban equipped with machines guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

“At the time of the strike, the ground force was unaware of any civilians in or around the compound; they only knew that the Taliban was using the building as a fighting position,” a force spokeswoman said in a statement.

“We investigate every credible allegation of error and review every mission to learn, adapt and improve,” she said.

Also Read: The Radically Changing Story of the US Airstrike on an Afghan Hospital: From Mistake to Justification

The deaths are the latest in a growing civilian casualty toll caused by air strikes and underline the severity of the Afghan war even as moves to begin peace talks have picked up with contacts between US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban representatives.

The United Nations said last month the number of civilian casualties from air strikes in the first nine months of the year was already higher than in any entire year since at least 2009.

The increase has come together with a sharp jump in the number of air operations under a U.S. strategy aimed at stepping up pressure on the Taliban to force them to accept a negotiated end to the 17-year war.

According to figures from the US military, U.S. aircraft had released 5,213 weapons by the end of September, up from 4,361 for the entire 2017 and the highest number since 2011 when there were more than 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan.