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Gul Muhammad joined the Afghan army in 2016, when he was just 22 years old. He wanted to serve his nation by fighting the Taliban and earning an honest living as a soldier.
But after the U.S. signed a peace deal with the Taliban last year, Muhammad felt increasingly desperate as the army lost territory and suffered heavy casualties.
In December, Muhammad surrendered to the Taliban, one of four soldiers in his company who deserted at the same time. “Our commander was neglecting the lives of the soldiers, stealing our food and salaries and deploying us unplanned,” he said. “This war has no morale. The Taliban are stronger and they are brutal.”
Muhammad’s despair is endemic throughout Afghanistan after U.S. President Joe Biden announced plans to “end the war forever” and withdraw all U.S. and NATO troops from the U.S. Afghanistan on September 11, twentieth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
“The war in Afghanistan was never a multigenerational enterprise,” Biden said in a speech Wednesday.
The US is leaving Afghanistan at a time when the Kabul government is fragile, besieged by corruption and poisonous internal rivalries. Some Taliban say they are confident that if they wait their time they can install an Islamic emirate, a scenario that runs the risk of completely reversing U.S. efforts to support the democratization and modernization of Afghan society.
“Our jihad will continue until we have established and restored an Islamic regime,” a Taliban leader and former governor in eastern Afghanistan told the Financial Times. “Our weapons and bombers are ready to attack the remaining forces in Afghanistan and the puppet regime.”
As the United States recedes, Afghanistan’s neighbors – Pakistan, Iran, Russia and China – hope to enter the power vacuum, evoking the great power rivalries in the late 19th-century region between Britain and Russia.
Sajjan Gohel, an expert on South Asia at the London School of Economics, said there were disturbing parallels between the current US withdrawal and the Soviet withdrawal 30 years ago.
After the collapse of the Soviet regime, Afghanistan became a refuge for Islamic militants around the world. “The house of cards fell,” Gohel said. “Ungoverned spaces are the main asset for extremism to thrive.”
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Special Representative to Afghanistan, joins Taliban co-founder Abdullah Ghani Baradar in Doha last year © Karim Jaafar / AFP / Getty
Biden set the withdrawal date after taking a deal brokered by the Trump administration and said “maybe it wasn’t what I would have negotiated myself.” The Doha agreement, signed between the US and the Taliban in February 2020, set a timetable for withdrawal. In return, the Taliban said it would not allow al-Qaeda to threaten the United States from Afghanistan and would reduce levels of violence, according to a political commitment it has failed to meet.
The Taliban managed to free thousands of prisoners while launching a relentless assault on Afghan security forces and civilians. More than 500 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan during the first three months of 2021, 30% more than the previous year, according to the UN. The Taliban have been blamed for a wave of killings of journalists, judges and activists that have shaken civil society.
Talks between the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul and the Taliban to reach a power-sharing deal have stalled, prompting the Biden administration to suggest a new multinational peace conference in Istanbul to chart a way forward. The Taliban have refused to attend.
Christopher Kolenda, a retired army colonel who has negotiated with the Taliban, said the United States had little influence after a series of “missed opportunities” to get out.
He warned that in the absence of a comprehensive regional approach to peace, “Afghanistan’s neighbors continue to stir the pot with their representatives and transfer security issues.”
Afghan security personnel remove damaged vehicle after deadly road bombing in Kabul in January © Rahmat Gul / AP
Chris Alexander, a former Canadian diplomat, has been outspoken about the United States and its allies not demanding accountability from Pakistan for its role in supporting the Taliban by providing funding and refuge to its leaders.
“The US and NATO allies have not even tried the best strategy available to end this war: sanctions against those responsible in Pakistan. With or without international military forces on the ground, united political action is needed to end the war of representatives of Pakistan, “he said on Twitter.
Afghans are preparing for a future without the US keeping the Taliban at bay. Many, like Ghousuddin Frotan, try to flee to Europe or neighboring countries.
“Because of the worsening security situation and the targeted killings, I want to leave the country,” said Frotan, director of a social development organization, “I know many other people who want to leave.”
Madiha Afzal of the Brookings Institution said women’s rights had been jeopardized. “The Taliban leadership has learned to evade some of these rights issues to gain international legitimacy, but the group’s ideology remains the same,” he said.
A senior US official said Washington would support women’s rights through diplomatic means and would still have significant anti-terrorist resources in the region to fight a terrorist threat in Afghanistan and would maintain the Taliban’s commitment. to ensure that al-Qaeda does not do it once. we are threatening the US again.
But the Taliban are “encouraged” by the diplomatic legitimacy the U.S. deal has given them, said Naheed Farid, a member of parliament in Afghanistan. “They did not disconnect their ties with al-Qaeda. If the mission was to fight international terrorism, the mission has not been fulfilled. ”
A former U.S. military commander also questioned the viability of the Biden administration’s commitment to provide assistance to the 300,000-strong Afghan national security forces the United States had spent years training and equipping.
“It simply came to our notice then [the US took military actions against] they will establish new shrines in areas not controlled by the Afghan government in the future, ”they said.
Muhammad, the former soldier, fears the Afghan military will not be strong enough. “Without American and foreign troops, Afghans will be killed like chickens in a butcher shop.”
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