Taliban set conditions to stop fighting

Even as the Taliban are forcing their way across Afghanistan – they claim that they control 85 per cent of the country – the spokesman of the radical organisation, Suhail Shaheen, has asserted that the armed offensive will continue until incumbent President Ashraf Ghani steps down. It is not clear whether this was part of the agreement between the United States and the Taliban in the talks held at Doha.

There is no written agreement which ideally should have been between the Taliban, the United States and the Afghan government. It appears to be a bilateral agreement between the Taliban and the Americans, and the Kabul government was not part of it. The agreement seems to have been that the Taliban would join the national government, and the next round of elections would be worked out for a new democratically elected government. One of the prior conditions was that the Taliban members who were in prison are to be released.

In the early days, President Ghani put forward the condition that the Taliban should end their offensive before he frees their men from prison.

The Taliban had also said they would not join the government until the foreign troops do not leave Afghanistan. Clearly, American President Joe Biden’s dateline for withdrawing troops was a result of the Doha agreement with the Taliban.

The government security forces, which have been developed, trained, and equipped by the American and Nato military, are unlikely to give up without a fight. There is then likely to be a hard-fought civil war between the government and the Taliban. The government forces seem to want to put up a strong defence of Kabul, even as the distant provinces have fallen into the hands of the Taliban, and the men in the government forces had fled. The mystery remains how the Taliban are armed enough to carry on the battle.

The suspicion that Pakistan is helping the Taliban, is a charge that both the Taliban and Pakistan deny. It cannot be denied that the Americans might have left much of their arms and ammunition for the Taliban even though President Biden has expressed strong support for the Ghani government.

It looks like that at the speed with which the Taliban are able to take over large swathes of the country, the civil war would be shorter than expected.

The Taliban spokesman has talked of a ‘negotiated government’ without specifying what is meant by negotiated government. It is also not clear whether the Taliban believe in the electoral process and whether they will fight elections and whether they will accept the electoral verdict when it goes against them.

It is also possible that with the Taliban in the electoral fray, the people may not vote without fear. The Taliban will certainly oppose an international election monitoring team to ensure that the elections are free and fair.

The Americans in a hurry to leave Afghanistan have left the nitty-gritty of what is to happen after their departure unsorted. Though Russia has been trying to hold an international conclave including all the neighbours of Afghanistan, it has not made any breakthrough. This would be possible only if Russia hosts a meeting between the Taliban and the Ghani government. The precondition of the Taliban that President Ghani should step down rules out any talks between the government and the organisation.

The fear that the Taliban would give shelter to all radical militant groups has been put to rest with the hardline organisation assuring that there will be no room for foreign militant groups in Afghanistan. It appears that the Taliban mean it.