Shafaqna Pakistan: From their lightning victories across Afghanistan culminating in the peaceful fall of Kabul to the currently unfolding scenario, the Taliban continue to surprise many. The recent events, though, have been particularly shocking for the US and India.
There has been no civil war, no bloodshed, no public hangings so far. Kabul fell peacefully and things are fast coming back to normal in Afghanistan’s capital. The Taliban has announced an amnesty for all, asked women and government servants to get back to their jobs, media outlets are working, and female journalists are already out in the Kabul streets in search of stories.
The last few days have been akin to a Taliban version of ‘shock and awe’ for the US, India and their puppets in Kabul. US intelligence and Indian calculations about what they were expecting from Ashraf Ghani and the Washington-Delhi backed Afghan army and security forces all seem to have failed.
Ashraf Ghani has fled to an unknown destination with bags full of money, according to the Russians, leaving his supporters both inside and outside Afghanistan shattered. The Afghan army Ghani and Hamid Karzai had raised with the support of the US that spent over US$ 85 billion on it, collapsed like a house of cards. Today, the US forces and their allies are only concerned about the safe withdrawal of their own citizens and diplomats; the Americans have even been seen transporting their dogs back from Kabul to Washington leaving those Afghans who served them during the last 20 years high and dry. Meanwhile, India is in a state of mourning and cannot believe how its investments in Afghanistan, essentially against Pakistan, went down the drain.
The superpower finds itself disgraced like never before. The Taliban onslaught undermined the US, its military strategies, intelligence assessments, everything that it had assumed before and after its post 9/11 invasion.
On Monday, a visibly shaken US President Joe Biden admitted that the collapse of the Afghan government and army and the Taliban retaking control of the country happened much more quickly than the Americans had anticipated.
Biden did not have the nerve to admit that the Taliban had defeated the superpower and its allies, but instead blamed Afghanistan’s armed forces for not standing up to the Taliban’s lightning-quick offensive. He also pointed fingers at the top Afghan leadership as those deserving the blame. “So, what happened,” Biden asked, adding “Afghanistan’s political leaders gave up and fled the country.”
Kabul fell on August 15 –the day India celebrates its Independence Day. The Taliban’s smooth and swift takeover of Kabul turned into a day of mourning for New Delhi. Indian TV anchors were seen hysterically screaming in disbelief about how the Taliban had captured Kabul without any resistance. The experts they had invited were wailing over the waste of billions of dollars they had invested, ostensibly for the reconstruction of Afghanistan but, according to many analysts, for funding and sponsoring terrorism against Pakistan while using Afghan territory.
Pakistan has so far been cautious and measured in its reaction to the re-emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan hoping that Kabul will no longer be used against Islamabad like previously. It is no secret that Pakistan is the country with the most influence on the Afghan Taliban.
Pakistan will now encourage the Taliban to have a diverse and inclusive government in Kabul for sustainable peace and not repeat the mistakes of the late nineties. However, there is still a concern in Islamabad about how the Taliban will deal with the issue of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Although the Doha agreement signed between the US and the Taliban endorses that the Taliban would not allow its land to be used against any country, and a Taliban spokesman has assured that will be the case, Pakistan will keenly watch how the Afghan Taliban deal with the TTP.
Source: The News (Writer: Ansar Abbasi)
