Afghanistan Future: Lives of innocents depend on ‘rehmon karam’ of Taliban

With the complete withdrawal of the US armed forces and the NATO from Afghanistan by next month, the countries have started remolding their foreign policy with Kabul intending to make peace with Taliban – a major military force in the country. But has any ounce of thought been given to what will happen to the thousands of innocent civilians whose lives and future is on the “rehmon karam” of the Taliban militants? While last week the Taliban claimed to have had occupied 85% of Afghanistan after capturing key border crossings with Iran and Turkmenistan, this week the militants seized a key town in the southern Kandahar province that is the country’s major border crossing with Pakistan’s Balochistan province. Former US President George W Bush has criticized the withdrawal of the American troops and said that the civilians will be “slaughtered” by the Taliban.” He had sent the troops to Afghanistan in 2001 after the September 11 attacks on New York’s World Trade Centre. During a conversation with German broadcaster Deutsche Well on Wednesday, he said. "Afghan women and girls are going to suffer unspeakable harm. This is a mistake... They're just going to be left behind to be slaughtered by these very brutal people, and it breaks my heart.” While leaving a petrifying future for the innocent Afghans, US President Joe Biden last week said, “As I said in April, the United States did what we went to do in Afghanistan: to get the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and to deliver justice to Osama Bin Laden, and to degrade the terrorist threat to keep Afghanistan from becoming a base from which attacks could be continued against the United States. We achieved those objectives. That’s why we went.” He further said, “We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build. And it’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.” Well, questions that Biden must answer are – Has the goal to “keep Afghanistan from becoming a base from which attacks could be continued against the United States” been achieved? Is there no longer a possible threat of more Osama Bin Laden in the days to come? And most importantly, is it not the responsibility of the international community to assure safety to the innocent Afghans? According to an AP report, as the Taliban surge through northern Afghanistan — a traditional stronghold of US - allied warlords and an area dominated by the country’s ethnic minorities — thousands of families are fleeing their homes, fearful of living under the insurgents’ rule. As per the Afghan government’s Refugee and Repatriations Ministry, “In the last 15 days, Taliban advances have driven more than 5,600 families from their homes, most of them in the northern reaches of the country.” In this week’s interview with Time of India, General David Petraeus, who served as the commander of coalition forces and headed the US central command in the war-ravaged country in 2011, opined that the US “will come to regret” the decision to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. He said, “I fear the decision to withdraw has consigned Afghanistan to a bloody civil war, and is likely to produce millions of refugees, cause damage to infrastructure and foist an ultra-conservative theocratic regime over much of the country that curtails the rights of women, democratic processes and human rights.” Since late June hundreds of Afghan soldiers have fled their homeland for a safe haven in Tajikistan. AFP reported the Tajikistan's national security committee as saying that 1,037 Afghan government troops had fled into the ex-Soviet country "to save their lives" after clashes with the Taliban during the night. "Taking into account the principle of good neighbourliness and adhering to the position of non-interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan, the military personnel of the Afghan government forces were allowed to enter Tajik territory," said the statement, published by Tajikistan's state information agency. AFP further said that Afghan security forces have been crumbling in the face of the Taliban onslaught, with several bases and outposts surrendering to the insurgents without firing a shot. Further, the diplomatic officials have told The Hindu that the Central Asian countries gathering for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Dushanbe are in particular worried about the possible spillover of violence across their borders with Afghanistan, revival of splinter jihadist groups and a refugee influx if the situation deteriorates. However, as the Taliban continues its operation of bringing key areas of Afghanistan under its control, several countries seem to have “preferred” to strike a peace deal with the militant group rather than launching a full scale war against it. Last week, a Taliban delegation had visited Moscow and assured that “it would not violate the borders of Central Asian states and also guaranteed the security of foreign diplomatic and consular missions in Afghanistan”, according to a Reuters report. The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday quoted British Defense Minister Ben Wallace as saying that his government will work with the Taliban should they enter the government in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the Afghan government instead of waiting for a savior to rescue the country has already begun its preparation to launch a full-scale war against Taliban if July 15 peace talks in Qatar fail. Kabul has also cleared its stance that it will no longer allow foreign troops on its land to fight against Taliban. "Should we not get to a stage in the peace process with the Taliban, then maybe a time (will come) where we would be seeking India's military assistance, more military assistance in the years ahead," Farid Mamundzay, Afghanistan's Ambassador to India, told NDTV. "We are not seeking India's assistance with sending troops to Afghanistan. Their footprint in Afghanistan to fight our war would not be needed at this stage," he clarified.