Afghanistan quagmire
A general spike in violence in Afghanistan since the Doha agreement between the US and the Taliban carries within its fold an increase in targeted killings. The latest such incident took place on March 2, 2021 in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan, when three women employees of a media group, Enikass Radio and TV, were gunned down in two separate attacks while they were walking home from work. Media workers generally are considered at risk in the war-torn country. Their death toll in the last six months alone is 15, if these latest three fatalities are included. Not only journalists, but clerics, activists and judges have been targeted in the recent wave of attacks, generating panic and forcing some to go into hiding or even flee the country. There has so far been no claim of responsibility for the Jalalabad atrocity, although in December 2020 the Islamic State (IS) claimed killing another Enikass employee. The Taliban have denied they are involved in the latest killings, but Nangarhar police chief Juma Gul Hemat announced that an armed suspect had been arrested while trying to flee, and had confessed to mounting the attack and being a member of the Taliban. Since the Doha agreement, both the Taliban and the Afghan government blame each other for attacks to discredit the peace deal or wring greater concessions. The Doha agreement lays down a withdrawal of the remaining 2,500 US troops by May 2021, but the new Biden administration is reviewing the deal in the light of what appears to be the Taliban declaring open season on the Afghan government and its forces while avoiding attacking the remaining US and NATO forces. It needs to be recalled that the Afghan government was not taken on board in the Doha agreement, and subsequent planned talks between Kabul and the Taliban barely appear to be sputtering along.
Meanwhile US Special Envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, seems to be undertaking another round of shuttle diplomacy. After visiting Kabul for talks with President Ashraf Ghani and Chairman High Council for National Reconciliation Abdullah Abdullah on March 1, 2021, Khalilzad was expected to travel to Doha for discussions with the Taliban. The obvious purpose of this round of visits is to expedite the barely alive talks between all parties, especially the Afghanistan government and the Taliban. Once Doha is done, Khalilzad may visit other regional capitals, and it would be surprising if he did not stop over in Islamabad, Pakistan being a major stakeholder in the Afghan endgame. The US State Department meanwhile has hinted at follow up visits by their diplomats to nudge the stalled process forward. Although Pakistan has earned kudos from the former Trump administration and the new Biden set up for facilitating the Doha talks, if the peace process makes shipwreck on the intransigence of the Taliban regarding their increased violence instead of a negotiated ceasefire, Pakistan may suffer some adverse consequences of the fallout of such a failure to move from war to peace. Pakistan managed to reverse Trump’s initial hostility towards it by lubricating the Doha process. Similar words of praise do lace the new Biden administration’s statements too, but Pakistan should no longer sanguinely continue patting itself on the back while the peace deal unravels before our eyes. Logically, if the desire for US and NATO withdrawal is traced from Obama to Trump, it would be in the interests of the Taliban, if they think history is on their side, to exercise restraint and thereby ensure western withdrawal instead of extending dire warnings as Taliban deputy leader Sirajuddin Haqqani has done, to adhere to the May 2021 withdrawal deadline. It would be in the interests of Afghanistan, Pakistan, the region and the western alliance to persuade the Taliban to go slow if not cease violent attacks. If Pakistan can exercise its influence on the Taliban in this regard, it seems the wise course. Otherwise the long running war in Afghanistan may see an indefinite prolongation, with all the consequences that entails for all stakeholders, but particularly Pakistan.
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