The Taliban say they don’t want to monopolize power, but they insist that there will be no peace in Afghanistan until there is a new negotiating government in Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani is ousted.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, who is also a member of the group’s negotiating team, set out the insurgents’ stance on the next steps in a country on the brink.
The Taliban have swiftly taken over territory in recent weeks, occupied strategic border crossings and threatened a number of provincial capitals – advances that will come as the last US and NATO soldiers leave Afghanistan.
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This week, at a news conference at the Pentagon, US Chief Military Officer General Mark Milley said the Taliban had “strategic momentum” and did not rule out a full takeover by the Taliban. But he said it wasn’t inevitable. “I don’t think the final is written yet,” he said.
Memories of the last term of office of the Taliban some 20 years ago, when they enforced a harsh Islam that denied girls education and excluded women from work, have fueled fear of their return in many. Afghans who can afford it apply by the thousands Visa for leaving Afghanistan, for fear of a violent descent into chaos. The US and NATO withdrawal is more than 95% complete and is expected to be completed by August 31.
Shaheen said the Taliban would lay down their arms when a negotiating government acceptable to all parties to the conflict was in place in Kabul and Ghani’s government was gone.
Afghan security guards inspect a damaged vehicle in Kabul on Tuesday (Photo Credits: AP)
“I want to make it clear that we do not believe in the monopoly of power because all the governments that have monopolized (sought) power in Afghanistan in the past were not successful governments,” said Shaheen, apparently including the Taliban’s own five-year rule in this assessment . “So we don’t want to repeat this formula.”
But he was also uncompromising in that continued rule of Ghani, called him a warmonger and accused him of using his Tuesday speech on the Islamic holiday of Eid-al-Adha to promise an offensive against the Taliban.
Shaheen rejected Ghani’s right to rule and reopened allegations of widespread fraud surrounding Ghani’s 2019 election victory. After this vote, both Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah declared themselves president. After a compromise agreement, Abdullah is now number 2 in the government and heads the Council of Reconciliation.
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When asked about the Taliban’s call to remove Ghani as a condition of a peace deal, White House press secretary Jen Psaki reiterated President Joe Biden’s support for the Afghan president on Friday.
“The president and government support the leadership of the Afghan people, including Ashraf Ghani,” said Psaki.
In a phone call on Friday Biden said Ghani that, according to the White House, he included $ 3.3 billion for Afghan security forces in his budget proposal for the fiscal year 2022.
Military aid includes US $ 1 billion to support the Afghan Air Force and the Special Mission Squadron, US $ 1 billion for fuel, ammunition and spare parts, and US $ 700 million to pay salaries for Afghan soldiers.
The White House said in a statement that the two leaders agreed that the Taliban’s military offensive “is in direct contradiction to the movement’s claim to support a negotiated solution to the conflict.”
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Ghani has often said he would stay in office until new elections can determine the next government. His critics – also outside the Taliban – accuse him of only retaining power, which has led to divisions among government supporters.
Last weekend, Abdullah led a high-level delegation to talks with Taliban leaders in the Qatari capital Doha. It ended with the promise of further talks and greater attention to the protection of civilians and infrastructure.
Shaheen called the talks a good start. But he said the government’s repeated calls for a ceasefire while Ghani remained in power tied to it Demand for the Taliban to surrender.
“They don’t want reconciliation, but they want to surrender,” he said.
Before a ceasefire can be reached, there must be an agreement on a new government that is “acceptable to us and other Afghans,” he said. Then “there will be no war”.
Shaheen said that under this new government, women are allowed to work, go to school and participate in politics, but must wear the hijab or the headscarf. He said women will not be required to have a male relative with them to leave their homes and that Taliban commanders in newly occupied districts have ordered universities, schools and markets to operate as before, including with participation of women and girls.
An Afghan civilian carries a wounded child to a hospital in Badghis province on July 7, 2021 (Photo: AP)
However, there were repeated reports from captured Taliban districts in which women were imposed severe restrictions and even schools were set on fire. A gruesome video that surfaced appeared to show Taliban killing detained commandos in northern Afghanistan.
Shaheen said that some Taliban commanders ignored leadership’s orders against repressive and drastic behavior and that several were brought before a Taliban military tribunal and punished, despite the details given. He claimed the video was fake, a piecing together of separate footage.
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Shaheen said there were no plans for a military push against Kabul and that the Taliban had so far prevented themselves from taking provincial capitals. But he warned that given the weapons and equipment they have acquired in newly conquered districts, they could. He claimed that most of the Taliban’s successes on the battlefield came through negotiation, not fighting.
“The districts that we fell and the armed forces that joined us … were through the mediation of the people, through conversations,” he said. “They (did not fall) through fighting … it would have been very difficult for us to conquer 194 districts in just eight weeks.”
The Taliban control about half of Afghanistan’s 419 district centers, and while they don’t have to take any of the 34 provincial capitals yet, they are putting about half of them under pressure, Milley said. In the past few days, the US has carried out air strikes in support of besieged Afghan government forces in the southern city of Kandahar, around which the Taliban have rallied, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Thursday.
The rapid fall of districts and the seemingly discouraged response by Afghan government forces have led US-allied warlords to revive militias with a violent history. For many Afghans, tired of more than four decades of war, this feared a repetition of the brutal civil war in the early 1990s, in which the same warlords fought for power.
“You know, nobody wants a civil war, including me,” Shaheen said.
Afghan militiamen join the Afghan defense in Kabul on June 23, 2021 (Photo: AP)
Shaheen also reiterated the Taliban’s promises to calm Afghans who fear the group.
Washington has promised to relocate thousands of US military interpreters. Shaheen said they had nothing to fear from the Taliban and denied threatening them. But if some wanted to seek asylum in the west because Afghanistan’s economy was so bad, “that’s up to them”.
He also denied that the Taliban threatened journalists and young civil society in Afghanistan, which targeted dozens of murders over the past year. Islamic State has taken responsibility for some, but the Afghan government has blamed the Taliban for most of the murders, while the Taliban, in turn, accuse the Afghan government of carrying out the murders in order to defame them. The government has rarely arrested the murders or disclosed the results of their investigations.
Shaheen said journalists, including those who work for Western media, have nothing to fear from a government that includes the Taliban.
“We have not sent letters to journalists (threatening them), especially those who work for foreign media. They can continue their work in the future,” he said.
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