As the full impact and import of the US-led west’s departure from Afghanistan unfolds, there is no dearth of handwringing and a blame game in western capitals. Former US President Donald Trump has rounded on his successor and the current incumbent Joe Biden for the manner in which the withdrawal has misfired into an astonishingly rapid and virtually bloodless victory for the Taliban. But Trump cannot so easily shrug off responsibility for the debacle. It was the Doha agreement on withdrawal that set the stage for what has followed, having kept the Kabul government out of the loop, which for all intents and purposes meant it had been thrown to the wolves.
The Biden administration’s deliberations on following through on the agreed withdrawal indicate how badly out of touch the officially certified truth in Washington was with the ground realities in Afghanistan. All the military and intelligence prognoses predicted a possible Taliban victory in about a year to 18 months after the US’s departure. There appears to have been little if any contingency planning if this timeline did not hold or was foreshortened. Dissenting voices went unheard or were marginalised in the deliberations, such was the almost entire focus on just getting out.
The Taliban were able to demonstrate during their military offensive on isolated outposts and border crossings that an already demoralised Afghan government military could not rely on supplies and reinforcements when facing Taliban attacks. The Taliban rubbed this home by messaging the soldiers in the field that as was the case over years (when the US was still on ground), corruption and inefficiency, rife in the Afghan military, would not only continue but also deprive them of any hope of succour or support. Why, the Taliban messaging underlined, continue to fight and die for a regime that did not care enough for its soldiers to even provide adequate food, ammunition, reinforcements and (dwindling) air power? Many soldiers succumbed to the logic of this narrative and surrendered without firing a shot. Those that did not, either sought refuge across the borders of neighbouring countries or simply melted away into the countryside. The battlefield momentum these peripheral victories engendered encouraged the Taliban to lay siege to provincial capitals, first the most distant and isolated from Kabul, later more and more important ones closer to Kabul, laying the foundations for the taking of the national capital. Whatever organised resistance still existed in Kabul completely collapsed after the ignominious fleeing of President Ashraf Ghani to save his skin. It hardly needs reiteration that when the supreme commander flees the battlefield on the eve of the decisive battle, his forces collapse. In the event, Kabul fell without a shot being fired in its defence.
The Taliban are now in control of all of Afghanistan except a sliver of territory called Panjsher, north of Kabul. This was the redoubt of Ahmed Shah Massoud against the Communist regime (1978-79) and the Soviet occupation (1979-1989). It could not be overrun by either opponent. From Panjsher, the Northern Alliance in a lightning move took Kabul in 1992 when the Communist Najib regime fell. The rest of the Mujahideen groups who had fought against the Soviets then fought a civil war that ended in the triumph of the Taliban in 1996. September 11, 2001 was presaged by Massoud’s assassination just days before. Some analysts at the time considered it the opening act of 9/11.
Today, his son, Ahmad Massoud leads the Panjsheri guerrilla forces, which are daily being strengthened by former Afghan troops and leaders who have refused to surrender before the Taliban plus ethnic militia leaders such as Dostum. The Panjsheris claim the capture of three district capitals near their base in recent days. Thousands of people are reportedly voting with their feet to join this incipient resistance in Panjsher. Ahmad Massoud hopes to build a force of some 9,000 guerrillas from this influx. They will benefit from arms and equipment left behind by the US. However, their opponents, the Taliban, have benefited even more from the treasure trove of weapons and equipment that has fallen into their lap after the ignominious US retreat. They also field some 60-70,000 fighters, which gives some indication of the odds the anti-Taliban resistance faces. The Taliban have announced that hundreds of their fighters are being dispatched to Panjsher. We can therefore expect a long drawn out guerrilla war between the two sides.
Redoubtable as the Panjsheris have proved themselves in the past, and despite the increasing flow of anti-Taliban fighters to their ranks since the Taliban takeover, their chances of successfully resisting the Taliban onslaught that is certain to come lie in the hope that the Tajiks and Uzbeks can call upon their co-ethnics across the borders for support. Both Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as is the case with all of Central Asia and even Russia, are wary of the possibility of fundamentalist terrorist movements based on Afghan soil spilling over Afghanistan’s borders and spreading mayhem throughout the region despite the Taliban’s repeated assurances they will never again allow anyone to use their soil against other countries. If nothing else, the Central Asian states most insecure may see purchase in pre-empting any such adverse development by supporting the anti-Taliban resistance.
It is too early to say how this overall scenario will play out. But the wishful thinking in many world capitals (Beijing and Moscow for example) that the Taliban will continue to ‘play nice’ may well be severely tested in the days to come.
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Copyright Business Recorder, 2021