SHAFAQNA| by Leila Yazdani: Afghanistan continues to suffer from a recent spike in violence, a legacy of the decades of wars in the impoverished nation. Since the announcement of an exit date of September 2021 for American troops by US President Joe Biden, Afghanistan has been witnessing a spike in deadly Taliban assaults across the country that has led to mounting casualties on all sides. The fear of potential aggravation of the political situation and worsening of security in Afghanistan, as well as the expansion of instability, is a matter of great regional concern.
The Taliban are intensifying attacks across Afghanistan to gain more territory ahead of NATO’s troop withdrawal in September. The militant group now controls vast swathes of land in the war-ravaged country.
Unprecedented peace talks between the Taliban and Afghan government continue to flutter, and as violence rages across Afghanistan, Taliban commanders are voicing exuberance about quickly seizing full control of the country and re-establishing their version of a so-called Islamic state. Afghan war enters more brutal phase as US troops begin pull-out.
Afghan forces have been clobbered by Taliban fighters in recent weeks, forcing the country’s military leaders to strategically retreat from a number of rural districts. With Afghan troops in retreat, militants claim to have taken nearly 30 districts since the US began its final troop withdrawal in early May.
In recent weeks, the Taliban have taken two districts in Ghazni, a key province straddling the highway connecting the capital with the former insurgent stronghold of Kandahar to the south, Thenews told.
They are now present in almost every province and are encircling several major cities — a strategy the militants employed in the mid-1990s when they overran most of Afghanistan. The Taliban’s military gains have triggered speculation they are preparing to launch an all-out assault on Afghanistan’s cities once the Americans and their international allies leave.
The Taliban’s growing presence nearby has spurred fears that the insurgents are close to launching another bloody assault on Ghazni city — as they did in 2018, torching the main bazaar and killing scores of civilians, France24 reported.
Both the Taliban and government, also accusing each other of overseeing rights violations, including the targeting of civilians. According to Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry, more than 250 civilian casualties, allegedly caused by the Taliban, were recorded in May alone, a charge rejected by the group, AA told. Taliban’s attempts to take over district capitals have also resulted in civilian casualties. Many locals in these areas are fleeing for their lives to safe havens.
With violence raging, many fear that the departure of the foreign forces and stalled peace talks are pushing Afghanistan into an all-out civil war that could return the Taliban to power. Some NATO allies, including the UK, have regretted the fact that the US has not made the withdrawal conditional on Taliban’s future behaviour. The concern is that the removal of troops risks creating a power vacuum and could result in the collapse of the Afghan Government and a takeover by the Taliban.
UK Secretary of State for Defense Ben Wallace echoed those sentiments last month, telling parliament that he “regrets” the decision to withdraw forces without setting conditions on the Taliban, Politico reported. The Taliban are not the only threat to Afghan forces; militant groups such as ISIS have also gained a foothold.
ISIS and other terrorist groups have gained a foothold in Afghanistan. Therefore, the consequences of a hasty and irresponsible withdrawal from Afghanistan could be dangerous not only for Afghanistan but also for the region and the world.
The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan may produce new security threats, but there will be economic consequences as well. The weakening of the central government and the potential rise to power of representatives of radical groups could set back Afghanistan’s development by decades and lead to new problems that will be much more difficult for the world community to solve in the future.
While, civilians suffer the most in wars, key to containing the Taliban and terrorist organizations after Western forces leave will be maintaining the Afghan National Security Forces, which have suffered massive casualties in the past few years.