The Taliban say they don’t want to have power, but they insist that there will be no peace in Afghanistan until President Ashraf Ghani is gone and a new negotiated government is formed in Kabul.
Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman who is also a part of the group’s negotiation team, spelled out the insurgents’ position on what should happen next in a country on the verge of collapse in an interview with The Associated Press.
In recent weeks, the Taliban have quickly acquired land, seized major border crossings, and are threatening a number of provincial capitals – advances that coincide with the departure of the last US and NATO troops from Afghanistan.
Gen. Mark Milley, the top US military leader, said last week at a Pentagon press briefing that the Taliban had “strategic momentum,” and that a complete Taliban takeover is not ruled out. However, he stated that it is not unavoidable. “I don’t believe the final chapter has been written yet,” he remarked.
Fears of the Taliban returning have been fueled by memories of their last time in power, when they imposed a strict brand of Islam that denied girls an education and prevented women from working. Thousands of Afghans who can afford it are requesting for visas to escape the country, fearful of a violent plunge into chaos. The withdrawal of the United States from NATO is nearly complete, and it is expected to be completed by August 31.
When a negotiated government acceptable to all sides in the conflict is created in Kabul and Ghani’s government is removed, Shaheen believes the Taliban will lay down their arms.
“I want to be clear that we do not believe in monopolies of power because any governments that have attempted to monopolise power in Afghanistan in the past have failed,” Shaheen said, presumably including the Taliban’s own five-year tenure in that assessment. “As a result, we don’t want to duplicate that formula.”
But he remained unyielding in his opposition to Ghani’s administration, branding him a war monger and accusing him of promising an offensive against the Taliban in a speech delivered on the Islamic holy day of Eid-al-Adha on Tuesday.
Ghani’s right to lead was questioned by Shaheen, who resurrected claims of extensive fraud that surrounding Ghani’s election victory in 2019. Both Ghani and his challenger Abdullah Abdullah declared themselves president after the vote. Abdullah is now the government’s No. 2 and chairs the reconciliation council, thanks to a compromise deal.
When asked about the Taliban’s demand that Ghani be ousted as part of a peace deal, White House press secretary Jen Psaki reaffirmed President Joe Biden’s support for Ghani on Friday.
Psaki stated, “The President and the administration support the Afghan people’s leadership, especially Ashraf Ghani.”
According to the White House, Biden told Ghani in a phone call on Friday that he had included $3.3 billion in his fiscal year 2022 budget request for Afghan security forces.
$1 billion will go into the Afghan Air Force and Special Mission Wing, $1 billion will go toward gasoline, ammunition, and replacement parts, and $700 million would go toward Afghan army salaries.
The two presidents agreed that the Taliban’s military offensive “is in direct opposition to the movement’s claim to support a diplomatic settlement of the conflict,” according to the White House.
Ghani has often stated that he will stay in power until new elections can be held to decide the next government. His detractors, including those outside the Taliban, accuse him of merely wanting to preserve power at any costs, generating divisions among government supporters.
Abdullah led a high-level delegation to Doha, Qatar’s capital, last weekend for discussions with Taliban commanders. It ended with assurances of additional negotiations as well as increased focus on civilian and infrastructure safety.
The talks, according to Shaheen, were a good start. However, he claimed that the government’s repeated calls for a cease-fire while Ghani remained in charge amounted to a demand for Taliban surrender.
“They don’t want to reconcile, but they do want to surrender,” he explained.
Before any cease-fire, he said, a new administration must be agreed upon that is “acceptable to us and other Afghans.” “There will be no conflict then,” he says.
Women will be able to work, attend to school, and participate in politics under this new regime, according to Shaheen, but they will be required to wear the hijab, or headscarf. He said that women will not be needed to have a male relative accompany them when they leave their home, and that Taliban commanders in recently captured regions had given instructions for universities, schools, and markets to run as usual, with women and girls participating.
However, there have been several stories of Taliban placing draconian restrictions on women in conquered regions, including setting fire to schools. The Taliban looked to be executing captive commandos in northern Afghanistan in one sickening video that surfaced.
Shaheen claimed that some Taliban commanders disobeyed the leadership’s commands against repressive and harsh actions, and that several of them had been tried and punished by a Taliban military tribunal, though he did not disclose specifics. He claimed the video was a merging of different material.
According to Milley, the Taliban hold nearly half of Afghanistan’s 419 district centres, and while they have yet to conquer any of the 34 provincial capitals, they are putting pressure on half of them. According to Pentagon press secretary John Kirby, the US has conducted out airstrikes in support of besieged Afghan government soldiers in the southern city of Kandahar, where the Taliban have been massing.
Shaheen also reaffirmed Taliban assurances aimed at assuaging Afghans’ fears.
Thousands of US military translators will be relocated, according to Washington. Shaheen claimed the Taliban posed no threat to them and denied threatening them. But, he continued, “it is up to them” if some people choose to seek asylum in the West because Afghanistan’s economy is so bad.
He also denied that the Taliban have harmed journalists or Afghanistan’s fledgling civic society, which has been the victim of dozens of assassinations in the last year. Some have been claimed by the Islamic State, while the Afghan government has blamed the Taliban for the majority of the killings, with the Taliban accusing the Afghan government of carrying out the executions in order to slander them. The government has rarely made arrests or released the results of its investigations into the killings.
According to Shaheen, journalists, particularly those working for Western media outlets, have nothing to fear from a Taliban-led administration.
