The resolution was adopted on Monday under India’s presidency by a divided Council where China and Russia were the outliers who abstained on the vote on the resolution…reports Arul Louis
The UN Security Council has demanded that the Taliban should not allow terrorists to use its territory for attacks against other countries and this would apply to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), according to India’s Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla.
The resolution was adopted on Monday under India’s presidency by a divided Council where China and Russia were the outliers who abstained on the vote on the resolution, but refraining from vetoing it in view of the overwhelming global support for the sentiments behind it.
All the other 13 members voted for it.
India played a “constructive and bridging” role at the Council and worked to the “extent possible for consensus-based” outcomes, Shringla said and this diplomacy was evident in saving the resolution proposed by the US, Britain and France from a veto by China and Russia, even as they expressed their opposition.
“Today’s UN Security Council Resolution, therefore, is a very important and timely pronouncement coming as it does during India’s Presidency of the UN Security Council,” Shringla told reporters outside the Security Council after presiding over the meeting on Afghanistan.
The resolution also demanded that the Taliban uphold human rights, provide safe passage to those who want to leave Afghanistan and allow humanitarian aid.
Shringla said that India was “extremely happy” with the resolution as it “highlights the will of the Council to take necessary steps that are very important for the international community in its engagement with Afghanistan.”
The Council action came while the clocks 10,000 km away in Afghanistan rolled past midnight into August 31, the deadline President Joe Biden had set for his country’s withdrawal from there, and the last C-17 aircraft took off from Kabul International Airport.
“Tonight’s withdrawal signifies both the end of the military component of the evacuation but also the end of the nearly 20-year mission that began in Afghanistan shortly after Sept. 11, 2001,” declared General Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of the US Central Command.
At UN, Shringla said, “I want to highlight the fact that the resolution makes it very clear that Afghan territory should not be used to threaten or attack any other country. In particular, it also underlines the importance of combating terrorism.”
“It also refers to those individuals and entities been designated under Security Council resolution 1267 (as terrorists)”, he said, adding, “And in that context I may mention that the LeT and the JeM, are UN Security Council proscribed entities, terror entities that need to be called out, and condemned in the strongest possible terms.”
The Council is “unequivocal” on terrorism, he said. The resolution said that Afghanistan “not be used to threaten or attack any country or to shelter or train terrorists, or to plan or to finance terrorist acts.”
“And I think that also reflects the views of council members, as we understand it from the discussions,” Shringla said.
Although they had differences with other aspects of the resolution, Russia’s Permanent Respresentative Vassily Nenenzia and China’s Deputy Permanent Representative Geng Shuang joined in demanding in very strong terms in their speeches after their vote that the Taliban not allow terrorists to operate from its territory.
US Permanent Representative Linda Thomas-Greefield told reporters, “The Security Council reiterates its enduring call on the importance of counter-terrorism.”
“Afghanistan can never again become a safe haven for terrorism,” she said.
While the Council expects the Taliban to allow those who want to leave, she said that “this resolution also affirms the Security Council’s enduring commitment to those who remain” adding that “we cannot airlift an entire country to safety. This is the moment where diplomacy has to step up.”
“We need to ensure Afghanistan respects the inalienable rights of its people e including women, girls, and minorities,” she said.
Over the last 20 years, more than 2,400 US service members have been killed in Afghanistan alone, reports Asian Lite News
The US Central Command announced that the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan has been completed, ending 20 years of Washington-led invasion of the war-torn nation.
“I’m here to announce the completion of our withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of the mission to evacuate American citizens, third country nationals and vulnerable Afghans,” Kenneth McKenzie, commander of US Central Command, announced during a news conference held by the Department of Defense on Monday midnight.
“The last C-17 lifted off from Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 30, this afternoon, at 3.29 p.m. East coast time, and the last manned aircraft is now clearing the space above Afghanistan,” McKenzie said.
McKenzie said while the completion of withdrawal drew an end to US military presence in the war-torn nation that Washington accused of harbouring Al Qaeda, the mastermind behind the 9/11 terror attack on American soil in 2001, “the diplomatic mission to ensure additional US citizens and eligible Afghans, who want to leave, continues”.
While paying tribute to the 2,461 fallen US service members, including the 13 troops who were killed during the August 27 Kabul bombings, and the over 20,000 personnel injured during the longest war Washington has engaged in throughout history, McKenzie also told reporters that no American citizens managed to embark on the final five evacuation flights leaving Kabul, meaning there were still Americans wishing to depart the country that were left on ground.
“We maintained the ability to bring them in up until immediately before departure,” McKenzie said.
“We would have been prepared to bring them on until the very last minute, but none of them made it to the airport and were able to be accommodated,” he added.
The General said the number of US citizens currently still stranded in Afghanistan is “in the very low hundreds”, stressing that the Department of State is now in charge of assisting those evacuees.
“The military’s phase of this operation has ended… The diplomatic sequel to that will now begin,” he said.
The General added that the US will continue trying to extract the remaining American citizens and “negotiate very hard and aggressively” to get eligible Afghans to come to Washington.
US media cited a State Department official as saying earlier on Monday that it was believed that there were fewer than 250 American citizens still in Afghanistan.
Taliban welcomes completion of US withdrawal from Afghanistan
Shortly after the US Central Command announced that the drawdown of American troops from Afghanistan has been completed, a Taliban spokesman on Tuesday welcomed the development.
The last US soldiers were evacuated from the Kabul airport at midnight on Monday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on Twitter.
“In this way, our country became completely free and independent,” he said.
Shortly after Mujahid’s comments on social media, Taliban members took to celebratory gun firing in Kabul, which lasted for about an hour, causing panic among residents of the capital city.
Following the firing, Mujahid said in a separate tweet that “the gunshots heard in Kabul are as a result of celebratory firing, the Kabul residents should not worry, we are trying to control it”.
The formal stance of the Taliban about the US withdrawal is yet to be made amid the absence of any statement.
Experts observed that US-led Quad, including Pakistan and Uzbekistan, has been created to counter India’s ambitious Chabahar project…reports Asian Lite News.
Afghanistan will not be able to join the meeting proposed by India, Iran, and Uzbekistan on the use of Iran’s Chabahar port in absence of any recognised or elected government there, sources said on Monday.
The new grouping’s meeting was due this month but has been delayed due to the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan, and is now scheduled to take place later this year.
These three nations had, in July, invited Afghanistan to form a Quad to discuss the India-sponsored International North South Transit Corridor (INSTC) project and the joint use of Chabahar port and the then Ashraf Ghani government agreed to join the meeting.
“In July, India had invited Afghanistan to join the group. But due to the changed political situation in the country, Afghanistan will not be participating in the three nations talks on INSTC and the Chabahar port,” an official said on condition of anonymity.
The INSTC is a 7,200 km-long multimodal transportation network encompassing sea, road, and rail routes, linking the Indian Ocean to the Caspian Sea via the Persian Gulf, onwards into Russia and northern Europe and offers the shortest connectivity route between them.
This port is the only gateway for India to Afghanistan and Central Asia after Pakistan blocking its transit trade route via Afghanistan, whereas the INSTC and the Chabahar port together give an alternate to China’s “Belt and Road initiative”.
India, Iran, and Uzbekistan had held their first ever meeting on joint use of Chabahar Port but later Uzbekistan also agreed to join US-led Quad grouping which also included Afghanistan and Pakistan, and would be focusing on enhancing regional connectivity.
Experts observed that US-led Quad, including Pakistan and Uzbekistan, has been created to counter India’s ambitious Chabahar project.
“India has proposed to include the port in the framework of the International North-South Transport Corridor and has welcomed the formation of the India-Uzbekistan-Iran-Afghanistan quadrilateral working group on the joint use of Chabahar port. The meeting is likely to take place in the later half of this year,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had said recently.
The Afghan government had been a major stakeholder in the talks since the multi-nation trade route had been developed by India along with Iran to provide a trade route for Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan. Its absence is set to effectively stop plans of goods from Chabahar port reaching land-locked Afghanistan, which was earlier set to come up as an important node of the INSTC, experts noted.
In any case, New Delhi has not closed its domestic options, including reviving of the provincial status of the territory, possibly reverting to full statehood at “an appropriate time”, going by the official pronouncements…reports Asian Lite News.
Global media reports supported by security experts indicate that the Taliban 2.0 now ensconced in Afghanistan has come to control $85 billion military equipment, including 600,000 small arms, 200 planes/choppers, black hawks, night vision devices, body armours and medical supplies. Those who worked for Afghanistans defences till last month testify to these biometric details.
Most of it has come overnight, much of it for the first time and most of it from the United States that will evacuate by this month-end.
No banned organisation had this much ever in human history. It is another matter that the status of being banned may likely go, as the world wakes up to the ground realities in Afghanistan. The question now is: Who all in the whole world will pay the price for the multiple mistakes that will certainly not be confined to the hapless Afghan people.
The question is: Besides the opponents, among them the ethnic minorities, who will be the targets of this newly-acquired military might – notwithstanding dodgy assurances by the new rulers?
As one struggles to gaze beyond the horizon from ‘new’ Kabul ruled by ‘new’ Taliban with whom the governments will have to do business, sooner than later, the first point of call for the new regime, nurtured, supported and diplomatically cushioned by eastern neighbour Pakistan, is bound to be India-ruled Jammu and Kashmir.
The key point to note here is that India anticipated this – if not fully, then substantially. It had urged the US all through the recent years not to quit in haste. India had warned the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations to base all American planning and action on one cardinal point: Islamabad’s support to the Taliban. This was ignored, whatever the American compulsions.
Now that it has happened, it is, perhaps, easier to explain why India acted in August 2019 to end Jammu and Kashmir’s “special status”, annulled its political and constitutional autonomy and dissolved the state (province) itself by carving out two “union territories”, directly ruled from New Delhi.
Whether or not it was a ‘correct’ step, in keeping with the popular aspirations, or whether it was popular with the people of the erstwhile province, must now be viewed in the context of the developments in Afghanistan, or to put it wisely, the Af-Pak region.
In any case, New Delhi has not closed its domestic options, including reviving of the provincial status of the territory, possibly reverting to full statehood at “an appropriate time”, going by the official pronouncements.
But this essay is about external security threat to Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh territories with the advent of the Taliban.2. Not to be ignored is Pakistan’s heightened campaign on the way it looks at the “Kashmir dispute” as its Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi tours the Gulf nations and the Central Asian Republics to canvas early recognition of the new Kabul regime.
Indian security establishment avers that it anticipated what was, and is, coming. It has already begun in the shape of attempt at infiltration from across the border before the Kashmir Valley gets snow-bound.
For this, the security affairs primer is what they faced, and dealt with, when forces of the erstwhile Soviet Union had quit Afghanistan, creating a largely similar situation, three decades back, in the 1990s.
There was big spike, it needs recalling, in cross-border infiltration into Kashmir, in tandem with violence by elements drawing strength from across the border. One fall-out was that a large chunk of minority Hindus were forced to flee their homes.
It also needs recalling that after the Mujahideen gained power in post-Soviet Afghanistan, thousands of ‘veterans’ of that war, from a score of nationalities – Arabs and Central Asians, but also Uighurs, Chechens and Serbs – returned to their homes to work for a global ‘Caliphate’.
Born or strengthened in the process were ETIM in China, Islamist outfits across newly-independent Central Asian Republics, JMB and HUJI in Bangladesh and Jamah Islamia in distant Indonesia, besides a host of Salafi-Jihadist bodies in Africa. India faced the Pakistan-based LeT, newly formed Jaish-e-Mohammed and their local affiliates.
The new Af-Pak developments point to a repeat of history, especially in India. While there are fears that the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan may impact the security situation in the Kashmir Valley, there are also apprehensions that this could escalate terror-related violence in the other two Union Territories as well. There are already indications that things could heat up south of Pir Panjal and key infiltration routes in the Kashmir Valley where even a more stringent vigil has been mounted. The routes could be Poonch-Rajouri or North Kashmir. Both the areas have seen encounters taking place.
However, the Pakistan based organisations have also anticipated and planned their moves. Several of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives from Pakistan infiltrated months before the Afghanistan situation, as per Indian security forces’ assessment.
There is a definite Afghan-Pakistan link. India’s NIA says close to 1,000 Pakistani terrorists are trained at these al-Qaeda and Taliban camps located in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. Incidentally, Helmand was among first provinces to return to the Taliban control once the NATO operations began to wind down.
India’s Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawathas said: “We were concerned about how terrorist activity from Afghanistan could overflow into India and so to that extent our contingency planning had been ongoing and we are prepared for that.”
However, this promises to be a complex situation affecting Afghanistan and Pakistan as well. As Akanksha Narain, an analyst with a political and risk consultancy firm in New Delhi, told DW, German media outlet, that Afghanistan could face a similar situation after the withdrawal of NATO troops to what it faced when Soviet forces departed in 1988-89.
“Mujahideen fighters until 1989 fought against the Soviet troops, then dispersed to other theaters, from Chechnya and Kashmir to the Middle East,” Narainsaid in July this year.
Now, the world should prepare for this likely eventuality.
Experts believe that the ideological differences among various groups may lead to a difficult situation for the new Afghan leadership…reports Amresh Srivastava
Various factions of Taliban, including the Haqqani Network, working in Afghanistan for a new leadership will lead to complete permanent chaos in the war-ravaged country, experts said.
Experts believe that the ideological differences among various groups may lead to a difficult situation for the new Afghan leadership which seized power a fortnight ago.
Talking about the ideological differences and personal interest of these groups such as the Al-Qaeda and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), among others, the experts observed that every group may need a slice of the cake.
They also opined that the Afghan leadership is unlikely to open a new channel of confrontation as it is busy with the process for the formation of the new government there.
Reacting to the situation, former Indian Ambassador to Kazakhstan, Sweden and Latvia, Ashok Sajjanhar, said that what the Taliban might do is that they will include the representatives of these factions and try to maintain peace.
“There are different sections or components of the Taliban, they have their own rights. But the common thread is that they are established and controlled by Pakistan’s ISI. The Afghan leadership may try to accommodate and try to buy peace, but all of them will jostle for more power, greater jobs and more authorities… So it will be a challenge for the Taliban how to accommodate them”, Sajjanhar said.
He also said that Pakistan will be shepherding and it will put pressure on these groups to accept what would be offered to them.
There was huge disconnect between the fighters on the ground and the Taliban leadership which met in Doha, so the implementation of the policies will also be a challenge for the Afghan leadership, he added.
Similar views were expressed by West Asia expert Qamar Agha, who said that the formation of a coalition government will be a difficult task for the Taliban and “these groups are having different ideologies and agenda, some of them have close connections with the Islamic States of Syria and Iraq (ISIS), with Al-Qaeda or other groups, therefore, they need to have a ‘common action plan’ to take them on the same page.”
“The cadre of the Taliban is not a very disciplined force. Secondly, the corruption is very deep-rooted among the Taliban, and many groups within this militia had behaved like mafia in the past… They were involved in gun running, poppy trade and they are unlikely to give up these practices,” Agha said.
Initially, they may behave with some unanimity but later on the differences will emerge and the possibility of confrontation among themselves will increase. We have seen earlier that the Mujahidin formed the government, but later they fought among themselves, he added.
However, another expert, Nishikant Ojha, disagreed with this and said that the Taliban leadership is aware of these issues and efforts are being made to take them on the same page.
“I do not think that the Taliban will have any problem with different groups with different ideologies and the representatives of all factions are likely to be accommodated in the proposed Taliban government. They have already done their homework considering these factors,” Ojha said.
The official reiterated that Russia is ready to participate in any international efforts aimed at ensuring “the social and economic rehabilitation of the region.”…reports Asian Lite News
Russian Special Presidential Representative for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov said Moscow is working towards establishing normal relations with the Taliban and will refrain from imposing any outside values.
“Our embassy is continuing to actively operate in Kabul,” said Kabulov.
“We need to maintain normal relations with any Afghan government,” he said, adding that while Russia is still concerned about the developing military and political situation in the region, nothing should be imposed on the Afghan people and the existing cultural and religious values must be respected, the Xinhua news agency reported.
The official said that Russia respects that the Afghan people may have their own perception of democracy, adding that the country’s traditional institutions can be considered “conditionally democratic.”
(Image Source ANI)
Kabulov didn’t rule out the possibility of new US airstrikes in Afghanistan and urged the West to assist in normalising the situation in the country through humanitarian aid rather than “create additional obstacles” such as freezing Afghanistan’s gold and foreign exchange reserves.
The official reiterated that Russia is ready to participate in any international efforts aimed at ensuring “the social and economic rehabilitation of the region.”
The statement came amid a chaotic and dangerous situation in Afghanistan.
A deadly attack on the Kabul airport on Thursday left more than 170 people dead, including 13 US soldiers.
In retaliation, the US military on Friday launched a drone strike in Nangarhar province of eastern Afghanistan against ISIS-K, an Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State group, killing two “high-profile” members and wounding another. Another airstrike was carried out in Kabul on Sunday against a suspected ISIS-K vehicle.
Taliban senior leader Abdul Haq Wasiq denounced the US airstrikes in Afghanistan and described the move as a violation of the US-Taliban peace deal.
A flight of fantasy that has been bought by much of what NATO terms as the ‘international media’ is that there is a wing of ISIS (ISIS-Khorasan) that, according to the President of the US, is bitterly opposed to the Taliban, writes Prof. Madhav Nalapat
The Kabul terror attack was inevitable. The dread of both President Donald Trump as well as his successor of risking the return of US service personnel body bags has been palpable since 2019. Such fear at the top attracts terror modules in the manner that blood attracts sharks. President Joe Biden, given his short but sorry record in Afghanistan, has very little credibility when he speaks of holding “those responsible (for the terror attacks) accountable”. Who are responsible? How will the Commander-in-Chief of the US military hold such wraiths “accountable”, when their support system, the Taliban, is off-limits to retaliation?
The US Presidency is the first real executive job that Joe Biden has ever held. A US Senator may carry clout, but bears no executive responsibility nor wields executive authority, except over his staff. The Vice-President of the US serves as the default option in case the President passes on, with little to do and plenty of time to do that smidgen of what passes for work in a Vice-President’s life. It is true that the origin of the harmful decisions made on Afghanistan by President Biden have their origins in the Trump presidency. But for a man who campaigned and won on the platform that he was Trump Contra, such an embrace of his predecessor’s toxic policies was unexpected and, in the eyes of several voters, possibly unforgivable. The fantasies that have for decades driven US policy on Af-Pak (the linking of Pakistan and Afghanistan in a clutch of matters involving both or either) did not begin with President Biden, but it is on him that responsibility for the present disaster vests.
The Taliban has five successive US Presidents to thank for the manner in which they have humiliated the US before the international community, and brought new hope and vigour to multiple terror modules germinating across the globe. Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden each contributed to first the creation and subsequently the survival and finally revival of a rag-tag collective of medieval fanatics propped up by surprisingly unsanctioned Middle Eastern donors added to logistical support from GHQ Rawalpindi.
Since CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping launched the policy of outsourcing much of the security of the PRC to the Pakistan military by mid-2013, the Taliban have acquired in China a source of assistance that in quantity matches that provided by the US at different times since the mid-1990s. When a country is an acknowledged superpower, several within its policy making and implementing machinery develop a feeling of omniscience and omnipotence. They begin thinking and acting as though the courses of action followed by them are by definition correct and optimal. Once a course of action gets launched, admitting that it was a disaster is made impossible by the realisation that such an admission would affect not just the individual or group’s status within the governance system, but future rewards as well.
Symbols and tokens get mistaken for the real, such as the tokenism of both Trump and Biden having the Pashtun-born but deracinated Zalmay Khalilzad accepted as the final word on the Pashtuns of Afghanistan, a group whose interests Khalilzad has from the 1990s equated with the Taliban. Given the disconnect between Zal Khalilzad and any Pashtun roots that this longtime backer of the Taliban may once have had, it is not surprising that Khalilzad sees as authentically Pashtun a collective of zealots who are completely removed from Pashtunwali, the code of that admirable community, the Pashtuns, across both sides of the arbitrary and historically unjust line on a map known as the Durand Line. These days, a third of the ranks of the Taliban forces are controlled by the Wahhabi Punjabi officers of GHQ Rawalpindi, while another sixth has been incentivised through dollops of “assistance” to follow instructions issued by the PLA. The rest remain Free Pashtuns, unwilling to subject themselves to any alien supervision, including the domination that GHQ Rawalpindi and the PLA exercise over their agents within the ranks of the Taliban.
Given the importance the Free Pashtuns give to their independence of thought and action, the odds are high that internecine struggle will soon become visible between them and what may be described as the GHQ Rawalpindi and PLA Captive Pashtuns within the Taliban. Interestingly, the proportion of older (especially wealthy) extremists is very high in the Captive Taliban segments, while the overwhelming majority of the Free Pashtuns are young. All factions are united by a civilisational hatred of the NATO alliance, especially the US, which is looked at as a consequence of many of its actions as the successor to the former European colonial powers.
ELECTORAL IMPACT
US interests have long been damaged by the unwillingness of ruling politicians in particular to factor in any consideration other than possible means towards success in the next election. President Joe Biden, unsurprisingly, is eager for control through sizeable majorities of both the Senate as well as the House of Representatives in the US Congress. Biden’s scurrying away from Afghanistan has been motivated by policies crafted as a consequence of focus groups and opinion polls claiming to point to what US voters want, which in the case of Afghanistan is a rush towards the exits. The problem in such calculations is that the number of US forces and the casualties suffered by them in the years leading up to the Biden capitulation have been negligible.
If not Biden, surely Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin must have been aware that the Afghan National Army (ANA) was (owing to a lack of trust within NATO in the Afghan people) trained and equipped in a manner that made their readiness for the battlefield subject to continual logistical and other assistance from elements of the US military as well as US-based contractors hired by the Pentagon. Given that Secretary Austin must have been aware that the ANA would fold up once such support was withdrawn, it is a mystery as to why the well-regarded former US Army general did not threaten to resign as a means of preventing President Biden from the suicidal course that the substantial number of Wahhabi influencers within the Democratic Party ranks urged on him.
While the loss of respect of the military for their Commander-in-Chief is palpable (as chatter in US military mess halls across the world make clear), another casualty has been their earlier regard for the US Defense Secretary, who is now regarded as just a “Yes Man” to the US President in the manner of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan are regarded, perhaps unfairly in the case of all three of these very capable individuals. While the (often closet) Wahhabis within the US polity and administration may disagree, the reality is that voters are unlikely to look with favour on the devastating fallout of Biden’s decision to scoot and run from the battlefields of Afghanistan.
This was done in a shameless manner that has been on display to the international community even through Biden-favouring media outlets such as CNN or the New York Times. While Donald J. Trump is unlikely to secure an encore into the White House, the possibility of the Republican Party sweeping the 2022 midterms and the 2024 polls has been made possible by the pell-mell withdrawal ordered by Biden of all US military forces from Afghanistan, and that to the operationally impossible timetable set by the enemy combatant.
BIDEN AN UNRELIABLE SECURITY PARTNER
Less than 1,100-1,300 US special and protective forces were all that was needed to ensure that the Afghan National Army prevail rather than fold in its contest with the Taliban. That, plus the complement of contractors needed for logistical and other support, the expenditure on which would benefit the US economy through the retention of jobs and production capacity rather than (as alleged by Biden backers) get frittered away uselessly in an “endless” war. Why the continued stationing of US soldiers in Germany and Japan since 1945 (even after the collapse of the USSR in 1992) is not an example of “endless war” although Afghanistan is to Biden at least, remains unclear.
Across the world, President Biden’s shameful placing of the entire responsibility for the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban upon the shoulders of the Afghan government and its military has stunned US allies and prospective partners. With such Commanders-in-Chief as Donald J. Trump and Joseph R. Biden, is it possible to regard the US as a reliable security partner, that too against the PRC? This is the question that has come to life after Biden decided to continue with his predecessor’s acceptance of Khalilzad’s plan to once again (as in 1996) hand over Afghanistan to the Taliban. It is clear that this Trump-appointed Biden favourite has learnt little from his Clinton-era escapades, when as a private citizen he worked alongside Assistant Secretary of State Robin Raphel to install the Taliban in power in Kabul in 1996.
It was President Clinton who went along with the views of oil interests in the US who were tutored by GHQ Rawalpindi to regard the Taliban as being the answer towards securing stable access by US corporates to the mineral riches of that fractured country. President George W. Bush outsourced US strategy in Afghanistan after 9/11 to the Pakistan military, his thinking confused as a consequence of his obsession about Saddam Hussein. It was during the Bush-Cheney tenure that US funds and weaponry flowed to Taliban elements identified by GHQ Rawalpindi to their trusting US interlocuters as “moderate Afghans”. The US taxpayer funded the revival of the Taliban under President G.W. Bush and afterwards, each of his successors. No surprise, considering the unthinking reliance of successive administrations on the Pakistan military.
Barack Obama, with his lack of interest in anything other than matters of personal political interest that has been a defining characteristic of the manner of functioning of the 44th President of the US, continued with the time-honoured policy of regarding the Pakistan military as the solution and not the problem facing Afghanistan. Among the consequences of this fatal policy was the continued revival of the Taliban. This is a collective that has made no secret of the fact that it regards the US as the Great Satan that needs to be eliminated, initially from Afghanistan and subsequently from other regions as well. Given such a history of serial errors in identifying and understanding the difference between friend from foe, it is no surprise that NATO has thus far not moved at all in seeking to ensure that the Northern Alliance prevail in the Panjshir Valley.
Should the forces led by Acting Afghanistan President Amrullah Saleh succeed in preventing the Taliban from taking control of the small province, it is certain that President Biden, Prime Minister Johnson and other NATO leaders would claim credit for a victory in which their role has been as facilitators for the other side. Given the trajectory of events, the sooner the Northern Alliance is assisted and not (now as during 1996-2001) ignored by NATO, the better. Iran, Russia and India are the three powers that clearly wish to see Amrullah Saleh emerge the winner in the ongoing battle with the GHQ Rawalpindi and PLA-linked elements of the Taliban. Given the manner in which the NATO powers have pushed Moscow into the grip of Beijing, and the need for ambiguity in verbal interventions, Delhi and Tehran are vague in their pronouncements. Of course, the three capitals will be in close contact with each other about the evolving situation in the Af-Pak region, given their commonality of their interest in preventing the Taliban from once again getting control of Afghanistan.
Should Acting President Saleh’s forces succeed in repelling a Taliban onslaught on their Panjshir redoubt, this is likely to induce further fissures within the ranks of the Taliban, as it is known within Afghanistan that only the Sino-Pakistan proxies within the Taliban are in favour of kinetic action against the contra-Taliban forces that have congregated in the Panjshir Valley. Ultimately, a revolt of the Free Pashtuns against the “Captive Pashtuns” within the Taliban is inevitable, given the innate independence and pride of the Pashtun people and their mistrust of the Potohari-led Pakistan army. Not to mention disquiet within the “Free Taliban” at the pork-eating, liquor drinking Han Chinese who are so plainly seeking to use the Afghans to the advantage of industrial groups in the PRC.
NATO’S FLIGHT OF FANTASY
In what can only be described as a comic albeit unwitting gesture, the G-7 leaders who met virtually days ago warned the Taliban that “international recognition” depends on their going by at least some of the many assurances that the Taliban spokesmen routinely recite before the press corps in Kabul. Each G-7 member state has an intelligence agency, with the budget for the collection of intelligence by Washington alone exceeding the GDP of several countries, including some in Europe. Had any of these agencies secured an accurate read on the Taliban, they would have prevented their political masters from reciting such hopelessly unreal statements as the Taliban being concerned about winning their goodwill.
All that the militia seeks is the avoidance of a kinetic conflict with NATO until such time as the militia and its archipelago of terror across the globe are refreshed and ready to strike at the Crusader “Far Enemy”. Those with knowledge of the chemistry and mindset of the Taliban would testify that the overwhelming majority of the cadres care less than the customary two hoots about “international recognition”. The few Taliban “leaders” who do have been briefed by their millionaire backers in some of the Middle Eastern countries that unless they get recognized as a legitimate government by the Atlanticist powers, it may be difficult to continue to funnel large amounts of money into their pockets. Some such financiers of individual Taliban leaders have at long last been subjected to questions by authorities in a few NATO member-states about the reasons for their generosity towards elements in the Taliban.
This is progress, although a mere slap on the wrist when compared with what is needed, which is sanctioning and prosecution of those funding the Taliban, especially in activities that hurt the interests and may take away the lives of citizens of countries within NATO. Such activity excludes Turkey, where President R.T. Erdogan has a special relationship with two of the six groups within the Taliban, and who seeks to take control of Kabul airport after the US and the other European powers vacate the premises around the close of the month. Ostensibly on behalf of NATO, but in reality in the interests of the Taliban factions that he supports.
The problem facing the Wahhabi President of what was once a secular republic is that at least three of the groups within the six that together constitute the Taliban are opposed to control of any airport in Afghanistan by Turkey or by any other outside power, and want all such airports (especially Kabul) to be run by themselves. Some in the Taliban, such as Mullah Baradar, are looking with anticipation at the bargains they will strike once the 31 August deadline is passed and Biden and his other G-7 partners beg for more time from the Taliban leadership to complete their evacuation.
ISIS-K NOT TALIBAN’S ENEMY
Another flight of fantasy that has been bought by much of what NATO terms the “international media” (aka the media in the Atlanticist powers) is that there is a wing of ISIS (ISIS-Khorasan) that—according to the President of the US—is bitterly opposed to the Taliban. Would that President Biden were, finally, right on Afghanistan, but he is not. The reality has long been (and this was on display during the movement of NATO-backed “freedom fighters” in Syria who moved from “fighting for freedom” and back to Al Qaeda and Daesh several times in the space of a few months) that the Taliban is the abode of several collectives of extremist fighters who are presumed to act on their own but are protected and facilitated by elements in the Taliban.
There were indeed mass terror attacks on the premises of the Kabul airport. What seems to have eluded the intelligence agencies that had been supplied (not accidentally) with copious chatter on just such attacks is that the purpose of such operations is to ensure that NATO forces leave from the airport in haste for fear of casualties. Of course, the Taliban will claim that such attacks were carried out by elements outside their control. Indeed, in the language used by the incredibly credulous President Biden, the terror attacks on the airport perimeter were carried out by “enemies of the Taliban”, a falsehood repeated by “international media”.
If such is the lack of accuracy of the intelligence inputs reaching the US President, it is small wonder that Biden has so grossly harmed US interests by the manner of his orders for withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. The earlier date, 9/11, was portentous, as the US President’s actions in Afghanistan have opened the door to another 9/11 type of mass terror attack on the US homeland. This would give a fresh opportunity to the many within US business who still see the PRC as an opportunity to make money for themselves rather than as an existential threat to US interests worldwide. Given the recurrence of terror attacks in different locations to the west of China, these business groups could persuade Biden into following the example of President George W. Bush.
Once 9/11 took place, the focus of his administration shifted in hours from dealing with the threat posed to US primacy by China to the battling of Wahhabi terror, to the relief of the leadership of the CCP. Another such mass terror attack may, analysts in the PRC confidently expect, once again see a similar shift in Washington’s priorities. It is not for nothing that the Wahhabi International has found a firm friend in the CCP and in particular the Central Military Commission (CMC), the institution headquartered in Beijing that is using various innovative ways of keeping the Uygur population in Xinjiang in check, to a Nelson’s Eye from the Muslim-majority countries, including Uzbekistan and Turkey. Small wonder that the Wahhabi International (especially its Pakistan military affiliate) and the PRC have such a cosy relationship
UNDERSTAND PAKISTAN AND TALIBAN
India, Australia and Japan (the other three Quad members) must hope that President Biden will recover from his tryst with fantasy and understand that the Taliban and Pakistan are the problems facing the democracies in South Asia, and not the solution, as Biden in his days as a US Senator used to repeat ever so often. Every day that President Biden (not to mention other Atlanticists such as the UK Army chief Nick Carter) refuses to acknowledge the truth about the Taliban and its links to the Sino-Pakistan alliance (which is working hard to ensure that the terror factories bred within Wahhabi-controlled zones once again divert US attention away from China), the more difficult it will be for the democracies to defeat those forces out to further destabilize them.
Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of whom the world has only a single photo is due to come to Kabul and hold a series of talks with other Taliban officials and Afghan politicians and leaders, reports Asian Lite Newsdesk
The supreme leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, arrived in Kandahar province from an unknown place on Sunday.
He has reportedly met with the tribal leaders of Kandahar province and the IEA is due to release a statement on his behalf, Khaama News reported.
The supreme leader of whom the world has only a single photo is due to come to the Afghan capital and hold a series of talks with other Taliban officials and Afghan politicians and leaders, the report said.
Prior to that, Mullah Abdulghani Baradar, the co-founder of Taliban and head of Taliban’s political office in Doha, had also landed in Kandahar province before coming to Kabul along with a delegation.
The Taliban’s governance is said to be conducted from Kandahar province.
Negotiations over the upcoming government in Afghanistan are expected to be expedited after the supreme leader arrives in Kabul.
Earlier, the acting minister of information and culture and spokesperson of the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, had said that their cabinet will take shape in the upcoming two weeks.
Fulfil commitments: US tells Taliban
US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that Washington expects that the Taliban must ‘follow through’ on its commitments.
These developments came after the Taliban previously made clear that “they would like to see an American diplomatic presence remain in Kabul,” Pakistan Today reported citing Ned Price.
“We have heard a range of statements from the Taliban. Some of them have been positive, some of them have been constructive but ultimately what we will be looking for, what our international partners will be looking for are deeds, not words,” Price added.
Price also said that the US is not coordinating with the Haqqani network in Afghanistan.
The US had designated the Haqqani Network as a terrorist group in 2012, is now a part of the government in Afghanistan post the Taliban takeover of the war-torn country, said Jason Criss Howk, writing in Clearance Jobs.
During the discussion, Price also reaffirmed that the US military is leaving by August 31, as reported by Pakistan Times.
US is “handing the [Hamid Karzai International] airport back to the Afghan people. What we are doing is trying to lay the diplomatic groundwork and the technical groundwork,” he said.
After the hostile takeover of Afghanistan, the Taliban has re-imposed repressive laws and retrograde policies on Afghan women that defined its 1996-2001 rule when they enforced their version of Islamic Sharia law.
Experts believe that Afghan women are most likely to face an uncertain future under the terrorist group regime.
Sajjan Gohel, a security and terrorism analyst also said that women are scared out of the Taliban minds.
(Image Source ANI)
Female anchor flees country
Beheshta Arghand, a female Afghan anchor, fled the country after an interview with a senior Taliban leader, CNN reported on Monday.
Arghand, who worked for TOLOnews, interviewed Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad, a high-ranking Taliban representative in mid-August.
The interview had garnered headlines around the world, as it was the first time in Afghanistan’s history that a Taliban member appeared live on TV sitting next to a female presenter.
The journalist confirmed to CNN that she had left Afghanistan for fear of the Taliban. The Afghan scribe added that she would return if the security situation in the country improved.
“I left the country because, like millions of people, I fear the Taliban,” Arghand was quoted by CNN.
This comes as Afghan journalists, cameramen and photographers in an open letter called on the UN, the international community, rights groups and media-supporting organizations to protect them against threats.
“Considering the increasing challenges and threats facing media workers, as well as their families and property, we urge the United Nations and donor countries to take action to save our lives and our families,” the letter read, published on Saturday and signed by 150 reporters.
The letter comes following the fall of the Afghan government on August 15. Several reporters and media staff have since fled the country fearing reprisal from the Taliban. (ANI)
IS-K, a radical affiliate of Daesh active in Afghanistan, had claimed responsibility for the deadly attack which also claimed some 170 Afghan lives outside the Kabul airport, reports Asian Lite News
Twelve of the 13 US service members killed in the August 26 Kabul airport bombing were “9/11 babies”, according to media reports.
The Pentagon released their names and biographies on August 28. The victims, mostly aged from 20 to 25 years old, were born within a few years of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, which led the US to launch two lengthy and painful wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“They never knew a US that was not at war, never lived in the world before the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, a country without ID checks in office buildings, metal detectors at schools, shoes X-rayed at the airport,” said a Washington Post report on Sunday.
“Our generation of Marines has been listening to the Iraq/Afghan vets tell their war stories for years,” Mallory Harrison, a friend of 23-year-old Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, one of the 13 dead, wrote on Facebook.
“It’s easy for that war and those stories to sound like something so distant — something that you feel like you’re never going to experience since you joined the Marine Corps during peacetime,” Harrison said.
Photo taken with mobile phone shows smoke rises near the blast site at an airport in Kabul, Afghanistan on Aug. 26, 2021. (Str/Xinhua/IANS)
IS-K, a radical affiliate of the Daesh active in Afghanistan, had claimed responsibility for the deadly attack which also claimed some 170 Afghan lives outside the Kabul airport.
On Sunday, the remains of the 13 troops were brought back home to the US.
President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley and other senior military officials attended a solemn ceremony at the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware state where the remains arrived.
The President and First Lady met privately with the families of the victims before observing flag-draped cases carrying 11 service members’ remains were loaded into vans.
The remains of two other fallen US service members were being brought home privately at the request of their families.
The White House said that around 111,900 people had left Afghanistan since August 14.
The US pullout from Afghanistan is set to be completed by August 31, the deadline set by President Joe Biden.
Remains of US troops killed in Kabul bombing return home
President Joe Biden attended a solemn ceremony at a base in his home state of Delaware where the remains of 13 troops killed in the August 26 Kabul bombings returned to American soil.
During the ceremony on Sunday at the Dover Air Force Base, Biden was joined by First Lady Jill Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley and other senior military officials.
The President and First Lady met privately with the families of the victims before observing flag-draped cases carrying 11 service members’ remains were loaded into vans.
The remains of two other fallen US service members were being brought home privately at the request of their families.
Nearly 200 people, including the 13 service members, were killed in a terrorist attack near the gates of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul as US forces were working to evacuate Americans and allies from Afghanistan.
The IS-K, a local affiliate of the Daesh terror group, claimed responsibility for the carnage.
The Pentagon on august 28 released the names of the fallen troops, mostly aged from 20 to 25 years old.
The White House said that around 111,900 people had left Afghanistan since August 14.
The US pullout from Afghanistan is set to be completed by August 31, the deadline set by President Joe Biden.
Delays and red tapism while procuring government documents in India forced them to choose West as a destination for dignified life…reports Vishal Gulati
More than 250 Afghans belonging to a minority communities of Sikh and Hindu, who have connections in India, have been holed up in a Sikh shrine just seven km from the international airport in Kabul and are desperately awaiting their evacuation to a Western nation.
For them India is not the preferred destination as a refugee. The reason: they believe it took years and years to procure the Indian citizenship. Also, there is too much red tapism while procuring government documents like a passport and an Aadhaar card.
They are praying to enter a Western nation as a refugee where they are hoping to live a dignified life. They comprise dozens of women and children.
“We understand their urgency at this point in time. Our volunteers are working with a team of ex-military contractors and the US State Department to help 250-270 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus find their way safely to the international airport in Kabul,” US-based global humanitarian non-profit organization United Sikh’s International Humanitarian Aid Director Gurvinder Singh told IANS over phone.
He said many of them took refuge in the Karte Parwan gurdwara after the country fell into the hands of the Taliban.
“Most of them belong to middle-class families and they were doing small-time business in Kabul. Even the Taliban assured them that they won’t be harmed and they will play a crucial role in the recovery of war-torn Afghanistan,” he said.
“But all of them were desperately awaiting their evacuation from the country well ahead of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan (on August 31). After that there might be potential attacks by Islamic State terror group,” he said.
“We are providing them emergency humanitarian aid, besides international protection and intervention for the families. This is vital for their secure and permanent resettlement. We are on the job to evacuate them by August 31,” said an optimistic Gurvinder Singh, 38, who is based in Texas.
“They can be evacuated either to Canada or the US or the UK or Australia or New Zealand. We are in constant touch with all these countries. Our first priority is to ensure safe passage to them from the gurdwara to the airport that is just seven km away,” he said.
A day before “martyrdom attack” near Kabul’s international airport killing 13 US service members and dozens of Afghans on August 27, he said all the Sikh and Hindu families were boarded in nine minivans and were on the way to the north gate of the airport which is under the control of the American forces.
Their vehicles were attacked by some terror groups ahead of the airport and they narrowly escaped. For 18-long hours they remained stranded in the vehicles and failed to enter the airport.
He said their teams still remain in constant contact with the community in Kabul as another attempt is made before the August 31 deadline for evacuation flights from Afghanistan.
Gurvinder Singh said they have set up an Afghan Helpdesk in New Delhi to reach out the displaced.
People queue up to board a military aircraft of Germany and leave Kabul at Kabul airport, Afghanistan. (XinhuaIANS)
Since the terror attack on March 25, 2020 in Gurdwara Har Rai in Kabul, the United Sikhs’ ongoing relief work for Afghan Sikhs was enhanced and moved forward with urgency.
For decades, the Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan have been victims of discrimination, terror, violence, and persecution at the hands of extremists. The proof is in the mass exodus of a proud community that once numbered over 100,000 to now being dwindled to less than 700, said the humanitarian organization.
Any Afghan citizen wishing to escape persecution must obtain a passport. To facilitate this resettlement, the United Sikhs has been requested by those on the ground as well as by multiple Afghan Sikh advocates to undertake the responsibility of passports for 356 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus in 2020.
In 2018 after the Jalalabad bombing that left 12 Sikh leaders dead, the global advocacy presented before the 39th session of the Human Rights Council the plight of the Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan.
In 2019, the Permanent Missions to the UN were urged to address the continuing threats to the safety of the Afghan Sikhs and Hindus.
Later in 2019 a petition was filed in the Canadian Parliament seeking safe passage.
