Fifteen more fatalities were confirmed Saturday from a barrage of bombings in Kabul, taking the toll to 51 in the deadliest day in the Afghan capital since the NATO combat mission ended in December. The explosions on Friday, which devastated buildings and overwhelmed hospitals with hundreds of casualties, were the first major militant assaults on Kabul since the announcement of Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s death. Decoding Taliban intentions with such attacks is imprecise, but at the least they are designed to demonstrate that they remain a potent and effective fighting force, capable of mounting successful operations in the heart of the capital city. A clear message has been delivered to the civilian population and the Afghan fighting forces that oppose the Taliban. They are facing their first fighting season without the support of Nato troops and this at a time when the Taliban are being forced into a leadership contest that is inevitable, now that the death of Mullah Omar has been revealed. The bloodiest 24 hours in Kabul in years suggest two things. One, the issue of who is to succeed Mullah Omar as leader of the Afghan Taliban is anything but settled. It could be that, as many observers have suggested, the weekend attacks in Kabul are the result of factionalism and a challenge to Mullah Akhtar Mansour. The Kabul attacks could also have been authorised by Mullah Mansour himself, possibly to demonstrate that he is not in the pocket of Pakistan or desperate to make peace with the Afghan state. Either way, the succession issue is far from settled. While it is still not clear quite who leaked news of Mullah Omar’s death and why, it does seem that hiding Omar’s death for two years has hurt Mullah Mansour’s credibility. A new leader who hoodwinked his fellow militants in an attempt to make sure he inherited the leadership mantle is hardly the kind of figure who compares well to Mullah Omar. The question for the Afghan government and the outside world, in particular Pakistan, is what next? The facts suggest a gloomy picture. The possibility of a dialogue process resuming, or starting anew, soon seems low. There are also a couple of months at least left of the principal fighting season this year, suggesting more military gains for the Taliban ahead. Worryingly for the Afghan state, it has already lost record numbers of soldiers and policemen in Taliban attacks this year. The government of President Ashraf Ghani is also hampered in its ability to regroup and reassess its security strategy because of internal political divisions. Parliament has yet to approve a defence minister. It is difficult to know whether and if the Afghan Taliban will stay politically united or how long it will take for the present convulsions inside the insurgency to settle down. For Pakistan, at least, the political goal should be to continue improving ties with the Afghan government, while the security goal should be to curb militant activity along the Durand Line. With the Afghan Taliban, the goal should be to reaffirm the state’s preference for a negotiated settlement between the Taliban and the Afghan government while simultaneously encouraging — and this will be a very fine balancing act — the Taliban to end internal rifts and unite behind the pro-peace faction without seeming to create a new Taliban leadership that is little more than a front for the Pakistani security establishment.
pk.shafaqna.com
