Afghan leader urges Biden to help fight Taliban ‘terror’

KABUL: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday called on US President-elect Joe Biden to “help fight terrorism” and support Afghanistan’s shaky peace process by ensuring continued aid to Kabul.
The plea comes after Afghan lawmakers urged the new US leader to review the Trump-led campaign to force a complete withdrawal of American troops from the country.
“Afghanistan looks forward to continuing and deepening our multilayered strategic partnership with the US — our foundational partner — including in counterterrorism and bringing peace to Afghanistan,” Ghani said in a statement, congratulating Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on their election victory.
Ties between Ghani and US President Donald Trump’s administration turned sour in recent months over Kabul’s exclusion from crucial behind-the-door talks between Washington and the Taliban, which led to the signing of a historic peace deal in February this year.
Under pressure from Trump’s administration, Ghani freed over 5,000 Taliban inmates since March, before sending negotiators to Doha, Qatar for intra-Afghan talks with the Taliban – a key criterion of the February accord, which also pushes for all foreign troops to leave Afghanistan by next spring.
A few weeks ago, to Kabul’s ire, Trump announced that the remaining US troops would return home by Christmas, much earlier than the timetable agreed with the Taliban.
Under the deal with the US, the Taliban are required to halt attacks on foreign troops. US forces have mostly refrained from striking Taliban forces, except for a few instances where they aided Kabul in preventing militants from seizing government-held areas.
Emboldened by the accord with the US and amid plans for an early troop exit, the Taliban stepped up attacks on government forces in recent weeks, displacing thousands in Helmand province, despite the group’s delegates holding talks with Kabul negotiators since Sept. 12 in Qatar to end the protracted war in the country.
However, both have failed to agree on an agenda for the talks, let alone start negotiations, raising fears that the intra-Afghan dialogue may soon fall apart.
Several MPs in Kabul called on Biden to review the US administration’s policies on the historic accord with the Taliban and troop withdrawal.
“We hope that Biden does not follow in the footsteps of Trump who has discredited the US and committed a betrayal both to the US and Afghanistan through the deal with the Taliban,” Hamidullah Tokhi, an MP from southern Zabul province, told Arab News.
“Biden needs to think about US and Afghanistan honor. He can pull the troops out, but not in a hasty manner. First, he needs to reconcile the two sides,” he added.
Mirwais Khadem, a legislator from Helmand, a region known as a Taliban stronghold, said that Biden’s policy was of the utmost importance since Afghanistan relies on the US “politically, militarily and financially.”
He said: “With Trump’s departure, Biden can reset a new mechanism that annuls part of the deal with the Taliban which bars the US from hitting the Taliban, and also puts pressure (on the militants) to engage in talks with the government seriously.”
In the past, Biden has been vocal about the need to withdraw troops from Afghanistan after more than 19 years of war.
He alienated some sections of Afghan society with comments several years ago when he said that Afghanistan “will never become a nation.”
However, Fawzia Koofi, a government-appointed negotiator who took part in the intra-Afghan talks for over a month before returning home last week, said that Kabul believed Biden will avoid “pushing for a hasty troop departure like Trump.”
She told Arab News: “We have been saying that an irresponsible withdrawal will probably result in the collapse of institutions, if not in the short term then in the long term.”
Koofi added that the momentum in the Qatar talks needed to be maintained.
“We need to convince the Taliban to be sincere in this process, and bring necessary pressure on the Taliban and their supporters,” she said.
When contacted by Arab News on Sunday, Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said it was “too early” to comment on Biden’s victory.
However, experts predict Biden “might continue Trump’s peace plans” with the Taliban in order to avoid a civil war.
“If the US decides to abandon Afghanistan altogether, a civil war will become inevitable. Most probably the Biden administration will decide to keep some troops in Afghanistan,” Said Azam, a Canada-based Afghan analyst, said.
Other analysts warned that the Taliban might increase their attacks following Biden’s win.
“The Taliban think negotiations are useless and they have to win on the battlefield. They will increase their attacks and Biden will not use the US military against the Taliban,” Rahmatullah Nabil, Afghanistan’s former intelligence chief, told Arab News.
“Biden will also put pressure on Ghani to accept the interim government. If Ghani refuses, then Biden will relocate US bases to Pakistan and will say that it is for Afghanistan to resolve its problems and that US troops are not there to fight the Taliban,” he said.
Pakistan played a crucial role in facilitating the intra-Afghan peace talks. US Special Envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad expressed Washington’s gratitude to Pakistan on several occasions in recent months.
However, in such a scenario where US bases are moved to Pakistan, Nabil added that the “conflict in Afghanistan will continue and Pakistan will have an even bigger veto on internal Afghan matters.”
Torek Farhadi, an adviser to the former government, said that with US troops looking for an exit “the renewed momentum for peace will not come before an administration is firmly in place in Washington. On the ground in Afghanistan, violence will continue and political parties will attempt to make side deals with the Taliban and neighbors.”