Afghan warlords mobilize to counter the Taliban attack

The warlords of Afghanistan are once again taking up arms to fight the Taliban as Islamist insurgents capture strips of territory in the final stages of the US withdrawal.

Taliban forces are gaining quick gains and launching assaults on strategic cities and towns, including Kandahar in the south and Qala-e-Naw in the northwest, threatening to reverse the hard-won freedoms in the 20-year war in the United States.

The insurgents claim to have captured 85% of the country’s territory. While the Afghan government has rejected the claim as propaganda, the Taliban’s relentless offensive after the departure of international and U.S. forces has left normal Afghans fearful.

In 2001, the United States partnered with the Northern Alliance, a coalition of Afghan militia leaders, to expel the Taliban from Kabul. Two decades later, warlords are calling for a “second resistance” against the Islamist attack.

The urgency has intensified as the Taliban toppled district after district, sparking fears that the country will fall into chaos. The Kabul national government is increasingly pessimistic about reaching a peaceful political agreement with the Taliban as Washington envisioned.

With great powers push To secure their strategic interests in Afghanistan, commanders now competed for political prominence, said Avinash Paliwal of the Soas South Asia Institute at the University of London.

“Its political value has increased for external powers as the US leaves,” Palilwal said. “It simply came to our notice then [the warlords] directly.”

This strategic outreach began last year. In September, Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar welcomed Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek who served as a former pro-Soviet fighter, anti-Taliban commander and vice president of Afghanistan.

Dostum, who has lived in Turkey and with whom he is supported Ankara, is determined to fight again. “We will come north, it is our home,” Dostum declared last month. “I will be proud to be murdered and martyred there.”

The growing heart for the mobilization and resurrection of militia groups has been provoked by warlords such as Ahmad Massud, son of an influential commander assassinated by al-Qaeda, and Atta Mohammad Noor, former governor and northern commander.

With demoralized Afghan security forces that suffered repeated defeats on the battlefield, Kabul has launched a “national mobilization” action to arm local volunteers.

U.S. President Joe Biden insisted Thursday that the U.S. military mission would end in August. The same week, American forces Bagram’s left air base at midnight, leaving him vulnerable to the looters who had looted him.

Faced with the imminent threat of a Taliban takeover, Afghans are fleeing the country. Emomali Rahmon, President of Tajikistan, last week sent 20,000 military reservists to protect his border after 1,000 Afghan security guards fled the border.

“The weaker the government, the more warlords will be able to remobilize,” said Romain Malejacq, author of Warlord Survival: The Illusion of State-Building in Afghanistan. “People may not like it, but they’re the safest bets.”

In the weeks since the United States and its allies have accelerated their withdrawal, the Taliban have headed to the northern districts in what appeared to be a preventive strike on anti-Taliban strongholds, said Kate Clark of the Network of Analysts of Afghanistan.

Since May, the Taliban have taken control of more than 40 percent of the country’s 400 district centers, according to Clark.

Clark said it was unclear whether warlords would be able to mount an effective fight against the Taliban. “We don’t know the actual popular mobilization capacity,” he said. “There are so many things that are in the air right now.”

Ahamdi, a former Dostum fighter in the northern province of Takhar, who asked to be identified only with his first name, said that while the Uzbeks, one of Afghanistan’s ethnic groups, were loyal to Dostum, many fighters had passed to the Taliban.

“So many Uzbeks have become Taliban and know where to hit Dostum in their native places,” the 60-year-old said. “I’m worried about my own safety and my life.”

Haji Rozi Baig, a former Afghan in the Khwaja Bahauddin district of Takhar, the former headquarters of the Northern Alliance that fell to the Taliban in June, said most people felt it was inevitable that the militants would conquer everything. the country.

“Under government control we were happy and at least enjoyed some freedom,” Baig said. “Since the Taliban took control, we have been depressed. At home we can’t talk out loud, we can’t listen to music and we can’t send women to the Friday market.

“They are asking about family members. He [Taliban] the sub-commander said girls over 18 should not be kept; he is a sinner, they have to get married, ”said the 55-year-old.

“I’m sure they’ll come take my 23- and 24-year-old daughters the next day and marry them by force.”