Massoud Hossaini
Over the weekend, incidents and fighting were reported in several provinces in the country, which killed Afghan civilians or security forces. The Kandahar airfield, where US troops are in the immediate vicinity, was also shelled.
For the vast majority of Afghans, the announcement that the Americans would withdraw came out of the blue. In mid-April, US President Joe Biden announced that he would bring the troops home from May 1, permanently and without any conditions.
Around 10,000 NATO soldiers from the Resolute Support training mission, including around 2,500 soldiers from the USA and around 1,100 from Germany, will now be leaving the country by September 11th at the latest. The date marks the 20th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks in the US that prompted the deployment.
In fact, the withdrawal started before Saturday. Material has been brought out of the country for weeks. In the sky over Kabul, helicopters were regularly seen flying containers around. Soldiers from NATO headquarters said that they are increasingly strolling alone through the once busy streets of the camp. Afghan military reported that the foreign troops had said goodbye to them and withdrew to their highly secured separate camp areas. That was partly highly emotional.
In Kunduz in the north of the country, German soldiers handed over a symbolic key this week. The German Defense Ministry announced that the part of Camp Pamir used by the Bundeswehr had passed into the hands of the Afghan partners. You are leaving Kunduz with pride and have fulfilled the task of the 217th Corps of the Afghan Army, it was said.
NATO said that since the security of the troops was the top priority, no details about the withdrawal, such as troop numbers or timetables for individual states, would be disclosed. Most recently, 36 NATO states and partner countries were involved in the operation.
Until recently, experts were divided as to whether and how the rebellious Taliban would react to the belated withdrawal of the USA. Actually, under ex-President Donald Trump, Washington had agreed with the Islamists to withdraw all US and NATO troops by May 1.
The Taliban said on Saturday that they were keeping an open response to the breach of contract. The leadership of the Islamists is still discussing this. The rockets on the Kandahar airfield as the only, more symbolic response so far, was a “more subdued reaction than many had expected,” wrote the Afghanistan expert Andrew Watkins of the ICG think tank on Twitter.
The US Army has heavy weapons ready in the event of attacks during the retreat. For Germany, the Special Forces Command (KSK) is supposed to secure the withdrawal. Attacks during the withdrawal will be responded to with “decisive reactions”, according to NATO.
So far, observers have also been surprised by the fact that the Taliban did not celebrate the announcement and the start of the troop withdrawal. Expert Watkins said that the Islamists’ cautious reaction had revealed massive distrust: Many Taliban simply did not believe that the Americans would really withdraw, he wrote on Twitter.
While the international troops were packing, the violence in the country continued over the weekend. According to a spokesman for the US military in Afghanistan, nobody was injured in the shelling of the airfield in Kandahar on Saturday and there was no damage. The incident was answered with a «precision strike». Additional missiles aimed at the airfield were destroyed.
Heavy fighting was reported from western Herat. There was also a two-night battle for government checkpoints around the provincial capital, Kalat. On Saturday, the Taliban overran a checkpoint in Gasni province. On Sunday it was not yet clear what happened to the 30 or so soldiers. Several civilians and security forces were killed in further incidents in several provinces.
Large parts of the Afghan population are worried about what might happen next. Afghan soldiers report unrest in their own ranks and that the army’s ammunition and weapons stocks are increasingly “disappearing”. Some comrades were apparently already preparing for a civil war.
In still others, the trigger triggers sheer fear. Above all, financially well-off and liberal Afghans want to leave the country. Insurance brokers in Kabul say they have got a lot of new properties for sale but no one wants to buy anything now. Many people try to sell their cars and other belongings to have cash at home, “just in case”. But some also expressed joy about the trigger.
Hardly anyone trusts the peace negotiations in Doha between the Taliban and the government. These are not progressing. The Kabul think tank Afghanistan Analysts Network writes in an analysis that an end to the war through negotiations is the “least likely scenario”.
It is more likely that sooner or later the Taliban tried to conquer territory; But a military march through by the Islamists is also unlikely, since they underestimated the Afghan security forces. In the end, countless Afghans would suffer again. (SDA)