TAMING TALIBAN Chief of Defence Staff says Taliban the same as it was 20 years ago but has only changed its partners, reports Asian Lite News
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hief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat said that insurgency spilling out of Afghanistan into India would be dealt in a same way India deals with terrorism at present. He also said that India would welcome additional support in the form of intelligence input as it does its part in fighting the global war against terrorism. “As far as Afghanistan is concerned, we’ll make sure that any y activity y likely y to flow out of Afghanistan and find its way into India will be dealt with in the manner in which we’re dealing with terrorism in our country,” Rawat was quoted as saying at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF)’s event ‘The India-US Partnership: Securing the 21st Century’ by news agency ANI. His request was directed at the Quad n a -
tions. He was also accompanied by Command Admiral John Aquilino who is the commander of the US Indo-Pacific. Rawat also said that India anticipated the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. India on Tuesday made it clear at the United Nation Human Rights Council session that it expects that Afghanistan’s soil won’t not be used to foment terrorist activities aimed at creating instability in the region. On the Taliban,, the Chief of Defence Staff said, “It is pretty much the same. It is the
same Taliban that was there 20 years ago.” Saying “news reports and reports from expats who have come from there are all telling us the kind of activities that the Taliban are into”, he added, “All that has happened is that the partners have now changed. It is the same Taliban with different partners.” Rawat’s comments mark the first critical commentary by a senior Indian official on the Taliban. Till now, Indian officials,, whether at home or at international fora, have treaded carefully, expressing concern about the situation and the potential threats that can come from Afghanistan, without linking the Taliban to them directly. On how the Afghanistan situation compared with issues of the Indo-Pacific region, Rawat said they were “in a different plane all together”. The Indo-Pacific issue was more about the freedom of navigation in the Indian and Pacific oceans, he said, adding, “The Indo-Pacific and Afghan situation should not be looked at from the same prism… Both pose challenges to security in the region, but they are on two different planes. And those two parallel lines are unlikely to meet.” Rawat added that India had to be prepared to fight all terrorist activities, and was committed to ensuring “a terrorist free envi-
ronment in this region”. “As far as Afghanistan is concerned, we will make sure that any activity which is likely to flow out of Afghanistan and then find its way into India will be dealt with, in the manner in which we are dealing with terrorism in our country.” Rawat said India would welcome any support from the other Quad nations (the US, Japan, Australia) on this, “in at least identifying the terrorists, and getting some intelligence input to fight global war on terrorism”. g this g Admiral Aquilino said the US was committed to getting all its citizens and those of its partners out from Afghanistan. “There has been close coordination between India and the Central Command to ensure that our citizens are safe and extracted,” he said. Indramani Pandey, India’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, outlined that New Delhi expects that the rights of Afghan women, aspirations of Afghan children and the rights of minorities will be respected. India also gave shelter to Afghan refugees who fled the war-torn country after the Taliban laid siege to it. The Taliban, however, informally requested India last week to retain its diplomatic presence in Afghanistan. Senior Taliban leader Sher Mohammed Abbas Stanekzai told Indian authorities that it was aware of India’s concerns regarding its officials and diplomats in the country. Stanekzai was responding to concerns that fighters from the Pakistanbased Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) were deployed at check posts set up by the Taliban on the route to the international airport in Kabul. The Taliban who have full control of Afghanistan are awaiting to announce its council of ministers on August 31, the deadline day for the US and NATO troops to evacuate Afghanistan. The US Army and NATO troops, who entered the nation and once ousted the Taliban from power, have been asked by the Taliban to evacuate the country fully by August 31.
SUPPLEMENTS DIVISION
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SAVE AFGHANISTAN FROM TRUMP-BIDEN FOLLIES To add insult to injury, Biden publicly put the blame for the Afghan rout not on himself (as was the case) but on the Afghan forces whom he had fully abandoned to their fate, writes Prof. Madhav Nalapat
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t was 2011, and the giddy aroma of the “Arab Spring” was in full flower. Whether it be the leaders of the UK, France or the US, each was convinced that the era of western style democracy had arrived on the streets of Egypt and other countries in the region.
The members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) remained unaffected, given that in many of them, the population was far better off than was the case in the countries run by authoritarian strongmen. Very soon, the “Arab Spring” that had been encouraged by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
Afghanistan evacuees (Photo Anupam Gautam IANS)
UK Prime Minister David Cameron and President of France Nicolas Sarkozy, morphed into a “Wahhabi Winter”. In Egypt, the fundamentalist Brotherhood took centre stage, and only in Tunisia did a relatively moderate (but still avowedly religious) party, Ennahda, come to power. The leaders of the US, France and the UK could not resist the temptation of going after a defenceless Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and subsequently fanning the flames of revolt in Syria against Bashar al Assad. They ignored warnings that such an intervention (including by the deployment of military assets) would create societal and economic meltdown that would result in a flood of refugees (including religious zealots, often with a violent bent) arriving at European shores. Gaddafi was finished off in a particularly medieval manner to a glint of triumph from the watching Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately for the armchair warriors and pundits in Washington, London and Paris, President Putin of the Russian Federation and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
of Iran stepped in to ensure that Assad remained in power, and the efforts of NATO ( the hugely expensive force that has crashed to defeat in so many theatres in Asia during the present century) failed to dislodge him. Both the Libyan and Syrian interventions gave a boost to international terrorism, which has entered a period of building up cells across target countries, waiting for the right moment to strike, a process that has been greatly accelerated by the pell-mell withdrawal of the US military from Afghanistan this month after first President Trump and later President Biden conceded defeat to the Taliban. Judging by the events culminating in the (temporary) occupation of Kabul by elements of the Taliban, the odds are high that Zalmay Khalilzad worked out a backroom understanding whereby (in exchange for abandoning the Afghan army) US and other NATO troops would be unmolested while they escaped from Afghanistan as fast as they could. If NATO led by the US has become an object of ridicule throughout the rest of the
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As for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, now that his newfound friend and (shaky) partner Biden has abdicated responsibility in a region crucial to the security of the US in particular, much will need to be done to partly fill the gap.
Narendra Modi and Joe Biden
world, that should come as no surprise to the main architect of the disastrous manner of the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, Joe Biden. The 46th President of the US has earned the contempt of fighting men in uniform everywhere for the chaos that was on display during the panic-stricken US military retreat from Afghanistan ordered by their Commander-in Chief, Joe Biden. President Biden succeeded in so overawing Defense Secretary Llyod Austin that he went along with his Commander-in-Chief’s decision to withdraw the logistical support for the Afghan forces battling the Taliban. This rendered them helpless in countering aggression by an enemy backed by Pakistan and China. To add insult to injury, Biden publicly put the blame for the Afghan rout not on himself (as was the case) but on the Afghan forces whom he had fully abandoned to their fate. Some in the US Congress (especially if the Republican Party rides on Biden’s lack
of leadership and seizes back control of the House and Senate in 2022) may ask for an enquiry into whether there was a clandestine arrangement worked out with the extremist militia by Taliban favourite Zalmay Khalilzad to sacrifice the Afghan military in order to ensure safe passage for US forces. Given that the best guarantee of such safety would have been the very US airpower that was abruptly cut off by Biden, this may have been another example of the 46th US President’s ineptness in matters concerning security. Had it been for Joe Biden, Osama bin Laden would still have been alive, enjoying the (doubtful) pleasures of younger and younger wives in the bosom of the hospitality provided by GHQ Rawalpindi, as he was totally opposed to the decision to make the successful effort to execute bin Laden in 2011. Joe Biden is a straightforward individual and a patriot, but what may need investigation is whether less scrupulous members of
his family or trusted friends were influenced by the well-funded Sino-Wahhabi combo to get the President to push the Afghans under the bus the way Trump did in the Kurds in 2019. Mark Esper stood up to the cowardly orders of Trump in a way that Lloyd Austin failed to do in the case of Biden, whose missteps may result in the doom of the Democratic Party in 2022 and himself two years later. As for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, now that his newfound friend and (shaky) partner Biden has abdicated responsibility in a region crucial to the security of the US in particular, much will need to be done to partly fill the gap. Given that the Uzbeks, Tajiks, Shia and Hazara (not to mention moderate Pashtuns) are opposed to Taliban rule, India will need to work closely with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Iran in order to support such groups to withstand the onslaught already launched by the Taliban against them in several locations across Afghanistan. Efforts need to be made to get Biden
to understand the folly of going the Bill Clinton route and handing over the keys to power in Afghanistan to the Taliban, whose worst perceived foe is, and has always been, the Atlantic Alliance. The advantage over the 1990s is that the majority of Pashtuns loathe the Taliban, while in Pakistan, they resent the control that the Wahhabi Punjabi Pakistan army has over their lives. Whether it be violent groups in Pakistan or China, the folly committed by GHQ Rawalpindi and the Central Military Commission in backing the Taliban will endanger the security of Pakistan and China in the period ahead. The next six months will be rough, the coming period easier and easier for those battling against the Trump-Biden plan to push Afghanistan back into the Middle Ages through the US once again acting as the midwife to a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. In such a situation, India needs to speak softly but act decisively, and it is expected of PM Narendra Modi that this will happen.
Photo shows the Kabul airport during evacuations in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan. (Str_Xinhua_IANS)
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US President Joe Biden, when he was the vice president in 2011, greets US soldiers at the US Bagram Air Force Base. (Photo US Army)
HOW US EXIT WILL AFFECT SMALL STATES IN SOUTH ASIA?
The US withdrawal was depicted as a humiliation and a loss, falling short of not capturing the accurate strategic dimensions and how the exit would impact India and the regional security of South Asia, especially to smaller South Asian neighbours like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives, writes Asanga Abeyagoonasekera
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.W. Apple Jr. wrote back in 2001 that “like an unwelcome specter from an unhappy past, the ominous word ‘quagmire’ has begun to haunt conversations among government officials and students of foreign policy, both here and abroad. Could Afghanistan become another Vietnam?” It took 20 years for the entire world to witness the US exit from Afghanistan. Shocking pictures of Afghan civilians clinging onto a US C17 military aircraft appeared in the media. Some of them shockingly perished in midair at the Kabul airport. The US had to live another Saigon moment. Pictures of US withdrawal in Saigon circulated in the media -- the famous image of a man with a white shirt reaching down to grab a person at the top of a staircase to board the helicopter. On the afternoon of April 29, 1975, CIA officer Oren Bartholomew Harnage was assisting the fleeing refugees and this was in 22 Gia Long Street and not the US Embassy, photographed by Dutch journalist Van Es. Back
S soldiers prepare to depart from Kunduz, Afghanistan (Photo Brian Harris_Planet Pix_ ZUMA_dpa_IANS)
then, President Nixon’s exit from Vietnam had 130,000 South Vietnamese evacuated to the US bases in Guam and the Philippines. Then the evacuees were resettled in the US. Just like refugees who fled Communist rule, today, the same obligation to protect Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban clutches has fallen on the United States. According to ORF scholar Harsh Pant, ‘the hard-won rights for women and minorities and democracy have already been sacrificed at the altar, reaching a modus vivendi with the Taliban’. The US withdrawal was depicted as a humiliation and a loss, falling short of not capturing the accurate strategic dimensions and how the exit would impact India and the regional security of South Asia, especially to smaller South Asian neighbours like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives. The failure of non-military instruments of power Robert M Gates, in his book ‘Exercise of Power’, admits that “it is probably true
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The US has faced multiple exits and several cycles of proxy wars since the end of the cold war when the hammer and the sickle ϐlag fell in Kremlin. US exit from Afghanistan was a decision taken by the previous Trump administration, taken forward by President Biden.
People queue up to board a military aircraft of Germany and leave Kabul at Kabul airport, Afghanistan. (XinhuaIANS)
that Brent Scowcroft and I as National Security Advisor and deputy should have at least devoted some time to focus on how the US and others might help Afghanistan after a decade of war... we certainly sent the wrong signal when we closed our embassy after the Soviets left. After helping the Afghans defeat the Soviets, we presumably had the foundation of at least some goodwill”. The lost opportunity in 1989 was due to the US focus on Eastern Europe than Afghanistan. With the absence of the US between 1996 and 2001, Osama Bin Laden established camps in Afghanistan that trained an estimated ten thousand terrorist fighters. Afghanistan became a state sponsor of terror, and a state sponsored by terror writes President George W. Bush in his memoir Decision Point. Twenty-six days after the 9/11 attack, US military began its airstrikes in Afghanistan. Taliban and al-Qaeda were ousted from Afghanistan by early 2002, with 27 American lives lost and $20 billion spent. After 20 years, the nation building cost was nearly $2 trillion. Gates observed, “We and Afghans would have been better served had our military departed in 2002 and had we thereafter relieved on our non-military instruments of national power and patience”,
believing that lasting change would come within a more realistic projection. George Town Scholar Christine C Fair rightly assessed that “After clearing Afghanistan of Al Qaeda, which happened in 2004, the United States should have withdrawn. When the United States decided to declare war on the Taliban and enter into a highly ill-devised state-building fiasco, it should have realised that this would be a disaster absent any policy to stop Pakistan from supporting the Taliban”. According to Sarah Chaves, while Pakistan was a key factor for the Taliban tentacles to grow in Afghanistan, the Afghan government’s corruption is another apparent factor. TALIBAN AND CHINA The US has faced multiple exits and several cycles of proxy wars since the end of the cold war when the hammer and the sickle flag fell in Kremlin. US exit from Afghanistan was a decision taken by the previous Trump administration, taken forward by President Biden. The withdrawal strategy leaves China, the emerging Asia power, with more responsibility to balance the Taliban occupation, making China’s western frontier of Xinjiang open for multiple security threats. A month ago, Taliban leaders assured China that they will not allow anyone to
US troops in Afghanistan. (File Photo DoD_IANS)
use Afghan soil against China and support China to maintain security in their border areas in the Wakhan corridor. However, China’s BRI still remains vulnerable when the US leaves Afghanistan, a geographical pivot state wedged between Central and South Asian regions. The calculated exit of the unending war in Afghanistan is a strategy that was in the making for many years in Washington. It was wholly executed by Biden. The danger for the US exit is not the Taliban’s hold, but their tentacles and extremist agenda will expand through its proxies to multiple geographies in the region, threatening the regional security balance. Taliban and smaller South Asian nations There is a clear and present danger for India from Taliban. India which focused on its security concerns in the recent past towards north (China) and West (Pakistan) would need a broader spectrum of focus towards the South (Sri Lanka and the Maldives) and east (Bangladesh). Taliban’s proxies in Bangladesh - Jund al-Tawheed Khalifa, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI-B), AQIS, and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) will have a new lease of life with the Taliban grip in Afghanistan. The Maldives, with its highest per capita contribution to foreign terrorist fighters, will be another nation that will be vulnerable and radicalised extremist in the country who has contact will see an opportunity with the Taliban’s emergence to power. In Sri Lanka, the burqa ban, madrasa regulation, and force cremation of Muslims are clear optics towards further radicalisation, which the Taliban will exploit. Jihadist movements such as National Tohweed Jamath (NTJ) with contacts with South Indian cells, will find their energy back with Taliban return. Smaller South Asian nations with weak security structures will be fertile grounds for the Taliban to push the extremist agenda and suppress the secular movements. Sri Lanka, which faced the most significant terror attack in April 2019, is vulnerable to future security threats with the weak political environment. Pakistan will be a breeding ground due to its support towards Taliban insurgents to spread their activity. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan
views the Taliban capture as a moment of freedom, saying, ‘Afghanistan has broken the shackles of slavery. The Taliban’s grip and expanse will directly threaten India and many other smaller South Asian nations. Anti-India groups such as LeT and JeM have already found sanctuary in Afghanistan due to the Taliban and ISI. The re-Talibanisation of Afghanistan will have severe consequences to Indian national security. The radical Islamic elements will flow across borders easily due to a lack of infrastructure to counter the threat within the region. The multi jurisdictional structures for intelligence sharing and counter-terrorism within South Asia are underfunded and underdeveloped. The Sri Lankan Easter Sunday attacks proves this very argument. Taliban 2.0 and the Indo Pacific Greater Pakistan-China and Sri Lanka-China collaboration and Chinese projects such as CPEC of Hambantota/Port City are development projects to accelerate economic growth. In reality, the security challenges from the Taliban can have a destabilising effect on these projects and cause severe delays. China’s inroads n South Asia are well-established in pro-China centric nations within the BRI. Many of these nations did not view the U.S. presence in the region as a positive trend, depicting it as a potential threat to national security projects from miscalculated policy decisions. The U.S. withdrawal is a direct message to the regional powers to look after their own regional security concerns than depending on Washington. The Western allies will draw another strategy in Taliban 2.0, perhaps more towards Indo-Pacific. Thus filling the gap after the withdrawal of the United States will be a challenging task for India, China and Russia. Maintaining the regional security of Central Asia and South Asia is going to be highly contested. China is far from filling the gap and perhaps will not focus on wider security concerns. Russia is monitoring the situation, leaving the burden to India that will face a clear, direct security threat from all directions including smaller south Asian nations. (Asanga Abeyagoonasekera is a geopolitical analyst and author of ‘Conundrum of an Island [2021]’. The views expressed are personal)
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KABUL’S ‘TERROR CHALLENGE’
IN KASHMIR AND GLOBAL IMPACT
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lobal media reports supported by security experts indicate that the Taliban 2.0 now ensconced in Afghanistan has come to control $85 billion military equipment, including 600,000 small arms, 200 planes/choppers, black hawks, night vision devices, body armours and medical supplies. Those who worked for Afghanistans defences till last month testify to these biometric details. Most of it has come overnight, much of it for the first time and most of it from the United States that will evacuate by this month-end. No banned organisation had this much ever in human history. It is another matter that the status of being banned may likely go, as the world wakes up to the ground realities in Afghanistan. The question now is: Who all in the whole world will pay the price for the multiple mistakes that will certainly not be confined to the hapless Afghan people. The question is: Besides the opponents, among them the ethnic minorities, who will be the targets of this newly-acquired military might – notwithstanding dodgy assurances by the new rulers? As one struggles to gaze beyond the horizon from ‘new’ Kabul ruled by ‘new’ Taliban with whom the governments will have to do business, sooner than later, the first point of call for the new regime, nurtured, supported and diplomatically cushioned by eastern neighbour Pakistan, is bound to be India-ruled Jammu and Kashmir. The key point to note here is that India anticipated this – if not fully, then substantially. It had urged the US all through the recent years not to quit in haste. India had warned the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations to base all American planning and action on one cardinal point: Islamabad’s support to the Taliban. This was ignored, whatever the American compulsions. Now that it has happened, it is, perhaps, easier to explain why India acted in August 2019 to end Jammu and Kashmir’s “special status”, annulled its political and constitutional autonomy and dissolved the state (province) itself by carving out two “union territories”, directly ruled from New Delhi. Whether or not it was a ‘correct’ step, in keeping with the popular aspirations, or whether it was popular with the people of the erstwhile province, must now be viewed in the context of the developments in Afghanistan, or to put it wisely, the Af-Pak region.
In any case, New Delhi has not closed its domestic options, including reviving of the provincial status of the territory, possibly reverting to full statehood at “an appropriate time”, going by the official pronouncements. But this essay is about external security threat to Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh territories with the advent of the Taliban.2. Not to be ignored is Pakistan’s heightened campaign on the way it looks at the “Kashmir dispute” as its Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi tours the Gulf nations and the Central Asian Republics to canvas early recognition of the new Kabul regime. Indian security establishment avers that it anticipated what was, and is, coming. It has already begun in the shape of attempt at infiltration from
across the border before the Kashmir Valley gets snow-bound. For this, the security affairs primer is what they faced, and dealt with, when forces of the erstwhile Soviet Union had quit Afghanistan, creating a largely similar situation, three decades back, in the 1990s. There was big spike, it needs recalling, in cross-border infiltration into Kashmir, in tandem with violence by elements drawing strength from across the border. One fall-out was that a large chunk of minority Hindus were forced to flee their homes. It also needs recalling that after the Mujahideen gained power in post-Soviet Afghanistan, thousands of ‘veterans’ of that war, from a score of nationalities – Arabs and Central Asians, but
also Uighurs, Chechens and Serbs – returned to their homes to work for a global ‘Caliphate’. Born or strengthened in the process were ETIM in China, Islamist outfits across newlyindependent Central Asian Republics, JMB and HUJI in Bangladesh and Jamah Islamia in distant Indonesia, besides a host of Salafi-Jihadist bodies in Africa. India faced the Pakistan-based LeT, newly formed Jaish-e-Mohammed and their local affiliates. The new Af-Pak developments point to a repeat of history, especially in India. While there are fears that the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan may impact the security situation in the Kashmir Valley, there are also apprehensions that this could escalate terror-related violence in the other two Union Territories as well. There are already indications that things could heat up south of Pir Panjal and key infiltration routes in the Kashmir Valley where even a more stringent vigil has been mounted. The routes could be Poonch-Rajouri or North Kashmir. Both the areas have seen encounters taking place. However, the Pakistan based organisations have also anticipated and planned their moves. Several of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives from Pakistan infiltrated months before the Afghanistan situation, as per Indian security forces’ assessment. There is a definite Afghan-Pakistan link. India’s NIA says close to 1,000 Pakistani terrorists are trained at these al-Qaeda and Taliban camps located in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. Incidentally, Helmand was among first provinces to return to the Taliban control once the NATO operations began to wind down. India’s Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawathas said: “We were concerned about how terrorist activity from Afghanistan could overflow into India and so to that extent our contingency planning had been ongoing and we are prepared for that.” However, this promises to be a complex situation affecting Afghanistan and Pakistan as well. As Akanksha Narain, an analyst with a political and risk consultancy firm in New Delhi, told DW, German media outlet, that Afghanistan could face a similar situation after the withdrawal of NATO troops to what it faced when Soviet forces departed in 1988-89. “Mujahideen fighters until 1989 fought against the Soviet troops, then dispersed to other theaters, from Chechnya and Kashmir to the Middle East,” Narainsaid in July this year. Now, the world should prepare for this likely eventuality.
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US ENDS AFGHAN WAR IN CONFUSED RETREAT
BY ARUL LOUIS
T
he US has ended its longest war in a confused retreat amid a swirl of recriminations and a subdued reflection of its international role as Tuesday dawned in Afghanistan and the last US Air Force C-17 Globemaster took off from Kabul airport. The Taliban was back in power in Afghanistan and the US that invaded the country to fight the insurgents, had spent the last days cooperating with the group and even bombing its enemies now considered common adversaries. The final pullout came 11 days before the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks carried out by the Afghanistan-based Al Qaeda in the US in 2001. As it had from Alexander the Great to the British and the Soviets, history seemed to have rendered its verdict on the US. “I want to thank our commanders and the men and women serving under them for their execution of the dangerous retrograde from Afghanistan as scheduled in the early morning hours of August 31st, Kabul time, with no further loss of American lives,” President Joe Biden announced the end of the 20-year war in a statement that was a far cry from the declarations of US leaders when they invaded Afghanistan. The military commander who saw the end of the war that began in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the US, General Kenneth McKenzie, said: “It’s a mission that brought Osama bin Laden to a just end, along with many of his Al Qaeda co-conspirators. And it was not a cheap mission. The cost was 2,461 U.S. service members and civilians killed and more than 20,000 who were injured.” And an estimated $2.3 trillion, nearly five times the size of India’s budget, was spent by the US on the war. In addition, over 1,000 NATO troops, 66,000 Afghan security personnel, about 50,000 civilians and 50,000 Taliban and other terrorists perished in the war. The war’s final moments were marked by a US aerial attack on a vehicle suspected of carrying suicide bombers that reportedly also killed seven children as collateral damage. The big gain for the US was the killing of bin Laden and clearing of the Al Qaeda, but it did not mean the end of international terrorism as the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) showed up in defiance of both the US and the Taliban. An IS-K suicide bomber killed 13 US troops and scores of Afghans in the August 27 attack at the Kabul airport in the waning days of the American presence. The end of the war was sealed last year for a war-weary nation by former President Donald Trump when made a deal with the Taliban to withdraw from Afghanistan by May this year. In July Biden had said: “So let me ask those who wanted us to stay: How many more. how many thousands more of America’s daughters and sons are you willing to risk? How long would you have them stay?” Biden extended the deadline to September to
buy time to smoothen the end, but it went badly. While the Democrats tried to shift the blame to Trump for the deal with the Taliban, the former President declared: “It’s not that we left Afghanistan. It’s the grossly incompetent way we left.” And its denouement of the withdrawal that now haunts Biden. He ordered troop withdrawal to begin in May, but the turning point was the abandonment of the US military base in July without a proper transfer to the Afghanistan government headed by President Ashraf Ghani. As the US military presence dwindled, the Taliban took province after province from the demoralised 300,000-strong US-trained Afghan defence forces and Ghani having left for the United Arab Emirates they marched into a leader-less Kabul on August 15. Several thousand US citizens and Green Card-holders had to be evacuated, along with several hundred thousand Afghans who had worked or collaborated with the US and now faced Taliban retributions. Biden sent about 5,000 troops to secure the airport for flights to bring them to safety. In the end, the airbridge out of Kabul managed to evacuate more than 123,000 civilians. But when the evacuation began there were horrific images of desperate people clinging to aircraft taking off but falling to their deaths.
But thousands, probably tens of thousands, are left behind, including up to 200 US citizens. Facing criticism, Biden shifted the responsibility to the Pentagon. He said on Monday: “For now, I will report that it was the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs and of all of our commanders on the ground to end our airlift mission as planned. Their view was that ending our military mission was the best way to protect the lives of our troops.” And now the prospects of those let behind to escape rests on the Taliban assurances to allow travel. A UN Security Council resolution passed under India’s presidency on Monday demanded that the Taliban keep the promise. Biden said that it “sent the clear message of what the international community expects the Taliban to deliver on moving forward, notably freedom of travel. The Taliban has made commitments on safe passage and the world will hold them to their commitments”. Domestically, Biden’s image of quiet competence built up by his party during last year’s election has been dented. The RealClear Politics aggregation of polls on Biden’s job approval shows that it is down to 47.6 per cent and 60 per cent of those polled feel the country is headed on wrong track.
Biden has faced attacks from both Republicans, who delight from the debacle, and his own party members. “This is one of the worst foreign policy decisions in American history, much worse than Saigon,” said Mitch McConnell, Republican Party leader in the Senate “This national disgrace is the direct result of President Biden’s cowardice and incompetence,” added Ben Sasse, a Republican senator. Seth Moulton, a Democrat member of the House of Representatives who secretly visited Afghanistan last week, said: “In my mind this was not just a national security mistake, but a political mistake, too.” Even US allies were alarmed by the chaotic pullout and debris of shredded and global security left behind. British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the US withdrawal leaves a “very big problem”. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the scenario “bitter, dramatic and appalling, especially for the people in Afghanistan”. The ignominious retreat by the Biden administration raises questions about Washington’s credibility as an ally around the world, including in the Indo-Pacific where it is seeking mutual cooperation in confronting Beijing, amid introspection by the pundit class and politicians.
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PM MODI SETS UP HIGH-LEVEL
GROUP TO MONITOR AFGHANISTAN
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rime Minister Narendra Modi has directed a high-level group comprising of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and senior officials to focus on the immediate priorities of India in Afghanistan, sources said. This group has been meeting regularly over the last few days amid the ongoing Afghanistan crisis. According to the sources, the group is seized of issues pertaining to the safe return of stranded Indians, the travel of Afghan nationals, especially minorities to India, and assuring that the territory of Afghanistan is not used in any manner for terrorism directed against India. “In view of the evolving situation in Afghanistan, Prime Minister had recently directed that a high-level group comprising of EAM, NSA and senior officials focus on the immediate priorities
On Friday, Ministry of External Affairs Taliban on Tuesday after the withdrawal of US of India,” source told ANI. The group has also been monitoring the spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said India is troops from Afghanistan, Ambassador of India ground situation in Afghanistan and international closely monitoring the situation in Afghanistan to Qatar, Deepak Mittal, met Sher Mohammad reactions, including the Resolution, passed this and is in touch with other countries as well. Abbas Stanekzai, the head of the Taliban’s PoIndia has evacuated over 550 people in six litical Office in Doha. The meeting took place at morning by the UN Security Council, the sources added. separate flights, either from Kabul or Tajik- the Embassy of India, Doha, at the request of the Dushanbe, of these, over Taliban side, the ministry of external affairs minThe United Nations Security ecurity Council istan’s capital Dus under the Indian presidency istry said today. y has adopted 260 were Indians. a resolution on Afghanistan The discussions focused on safety, security n in which the New Delhi also als facilitated the evacmember states reiterated the importance uation of Indian nationals through oth- and early return of Indian nationals stranded in of combating terrorism in Afghanistan and er agencies aand are in touch with Afghanistan. noted the Taliban’s relevant commitThe travel of Afghan nationals, especially various ccountries, like the US, Tajikistan, Iran and others. ments. minorities, who wish to visit India, also came up, Tajikis The resolution called for external affairs minstry said. or the INDIAN ENVOY IN Taliban to facilitate safe passage Ambassador Mittal raised India’s concern MEETS ssage for people wanting to leave Afthat Afghanistan’s soil should not be used for anTALIBAN ghanistan, allow humanitarians REPRESENTATIVE ti-Indian activities and terrorism in any manner. ians R to access the country, and upThe Taliban Representative assured the AmIn the first formal hold human rights, including diplomatic contact be- bassador that these issues would be positively ing di for women and children. ttween India and the addressed.
PUTTING PRICE TAGS ON MILITARY EQUIPMENT LEFT BEHIND IN AFGHANISTAN
T TALIBAN HAVE MORE BLACK HAWK CHOPPERS THAN 85% COUNTRIES
U
S Republican Congressman Jim Banks has revealed that the Taliban now have more Black Hawk helicopters than 85 per cent of the countries in the world, the Daily Mail reported. Banks, who served in Afghanistan as an officer in charge of supplying weapons, said: “Due to the negligence of this administration, the Taliban now have access to $85 billion worth of military equipment.” The militant group’s metamorphosis from rag-tag guerrilla force to highly professional, impressively equipped army has been at the expense of Western taxpayers, the report said. The UK and the US have picked up the tab not only for the eye-wateringly expensive hardware, but also the training budget -- as the Taliban’s ranks have been swollen by defectors from the Afghan National Security Forces. The irony is that the Taliban’s newfound arsenal was supposed to prevent Afghanistan falling into Taliban hands, it added. The group appears to have helped them-
selves to the state-of-the-art MBITR-2 (Multi-band Intrateam Radios) favoured by US Green Berets but denied to most conventional UK personnel. They were issued to Afghan government forces. What’s more, their weapons appear immaculately clean and well maintained, their uniforms looked washed and ironed and they carry their weapons as British soldiers are taught to carry theirs. The transformation in the group’s appearance and capability could scarcely be more vivid or disturbing, the report said. Sandals and shalwar kameez have been replaced by combat boots and tailored camouflage uniforms. Ancient AK47s are nowhere to be seen. Instead today’s Taliban carry US Green Beret-issue M4 carbines with telescoping stocks. The Taliban of 15 years ago were seldom if ever seen wearing helmets. But today their headwear is more expensive and more advanced than that worn by most British troops, it added.
he US provided an estimated $83 billion worth of training and equipment to Afghan security forces since 2001. This year, alone, the US military aid to Afghan forces was $3 billion, Forbes reported. Putting price tags on American military equipment still in Afghanistan isn’t an easy task. In the fog of war, or withdrawal, Afghanistan has always been a black box with little sunshine, the report said. Between 2003 and 2016, the US purchased and provided 75,898 vehicles and 208 aircraft, to the Afghan army and security forces, according to a Government Accountability Office report. Forbes reported estimated vehicle costs: Armoured personnel carriers such as the M113A2 cost $170,000 each and recent purchases of the M577A2 post carrier cost $333,333 each. Mine resistant vehicles ranges from $412,000 to $767,000. The total cost could range between $382 million to $711 million. Recovery vehicles such as the ‘truck, wrecker’ cost between for the base model $168,960 and $880,674 for super strength versions. Medium range tactical vehicles include 5-tonne cargo and general transport trucks were priced at $67,139. However, the family of MTV heavy vehicles had prices ranging from $235,500 to $724,820 each. Cargo trucks to transport airplanes cost $800,865 Humvees – ambulance type (range from $37,943 to $142,918 with most at $96,466); cargo type, priced at $104,682. Utility Humvees were typically priced at $91,429. However, the 12,000 lb. troop transport version cost up to $329,000.
Light tactical vehicles: Fast attack combat vehicles ($69,400); and passenger motor vehicles ($65,500). All terrain 4-wheel vehicles go up to $42,273 in the military databases. This month, the Taliban seized Black Hawk helicopters and A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft. Black Hawk helicopters can cost up to $ 21 million. In 2013, the US placed an order for 20 A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft for $427 million – that’s $21.3 million for each plane. Other specialised helicopters can cost up to $37 million each. The Afghan air force contracted for C 208 light attack airplanes in March 2018: seven planes for $84.6 million, or $12.1 million each. The airplanes are very sophisticated and carry HELLFIRE missiles, anti-tank missiles and other weaponry. The PC-12 intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance airplanes use the latest in technology. Having these planes fall into Taliban control is disconcerting. Civilian models sell new for approximately $5 million each and the military planes could sell for many times that price. Basic fixed-wing airplanes range in price from $3.1 million to $22 million in the DLA database. Since 2003 the US gave Afghan forces at least 600,000 infantry weapons, including M16 rifles, 162,000 pieces of communication equipment, and 16,000 night-vision goggle devices, according to the GAO report. The howitzer is the modern cannon for the US military and each unit can cost up to $500,000; however most are in the $200,000 price range. At the higher end, there’s GPS guidance on fired shells, Forbes said.