HISTORY OF AFGHAN CONFLICT , AFGHAN PEACE PROCESS AND IMPLICATIONS

FOR REGION AND SPECIFICALLY AFTER THE PULL OUT OF AMERICAN TROOPS
FROM AFGHANISTAN .

 in the history of Afghanistan, the internal conflict between

anticommunist Muslim guerrillas and the Afghan communist government (aided
in 1979–89 by Soviet troops).

The roots of the war lay in the overthrow of the centrist government of

President Mohammad HYPERLINK
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Khan in April 1978 by left-wing military officers led by Nur Mohammad Taraki.
Power was thereafter shared by two Marxist-Leninist political groups, the People’s
(Khalq) Party and the Banner (Parcham) Party, which had earlier emerged from a
single organization, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, and had
reunited in an uneasy coalition shortly before the coup. The new government,
which had little popular support, forged close ties with the Soviet Union, launched
ruthless purges of all domestic opposition, and began extensive land and social
reforms that were bitterly resented by the devoutly Muslim and largely
anticommunist population. Insurgencies arose against the government among
both tribal and urban groups, and all of these—known collectively as
the mujahideen. These uprisings, along with internal fighting and coups within the
government between the People’s and Banner factions, prompted the Soviets to
invade the country in December 1979, sending in some 30,000 troops and
toppling the short-lived presidency of People’s leader Hafizullah Amin. The aim of
the Soviet operation was to prop up their new but faltering client state, now
headed by Banner leader Babrak Karmal, but the mujahideen rebellion grew in
response, spreading to all parts of the country. The Soviets initially left the
suppression of the rebellion to the Afghan army, but the latter was beset by mass
desertions and remained largely ineffective throughout the war.

The Afghan War quickly settled down into a stalemate, with about 100,000 Soviet
troops controlling the cities, larger towns, and major garrisons and the
mujahideen moving with relative freedom throughout the countryside. Soviet
troops tried to crush the insurgency by various tactics, but the guerrillas generally
eluded their attacks. The Soviets then attempted to eliminate the mujahideen’s
civilian support by bombing and depopulating the rural areas. These tactics
sparked a massive flight from the countryside; by 1982 some 2.8 million Afghans
had sought asylum in Pakistan, and another 1.5 million had fled to Iran. The
mujahideen were eventually able to neutralize Soviet air power through the use of
shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles supplied by the Soviet Union’s Cold
War adversary, the United States.

The mujahideen were fragmented politically into a handful of independent

groups, and their military efforts remained uncoordinated throughout the war.
The quality of their arms and combat organization gradually improved, however,
owing to experience and to the large quantity of arms and other war matériel
shipped to the rebels, via Pakistan, by the United States and other countries and
by sympathetic Muslims from throughout the world. In addition, an indeterminate
number of Muslim volunteers—popularly termed “Afghan-Arabs,” regardless of
their ethnicity—traveled from all parts of the world to join the opposition.

The war in Afghanistan became a quagmire for what by the late 1980s was a
disintegrating Soviet Union. (The Soviets suffered some 15,000 dead and many
more injured.) In 1988 the United States, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Soviet
Union signed an agreement,called Geneva Accord , by which the latter would
withdraw its troops (completed in 1989), and Afghanistan returned to nonaligned
status. In April 1992 various rebel groups, together with newly rebellious
government troops, stormed the besieged capital of Kabul and overthrew the
communist president, Najibullah, who had succeeded Karmal in 1986.

Civil Wars: 1992–1996

In 1992, with UN help, a provisional government was formed to rule the country.
It failed because of infighting among the mujahideen. The conflict was particularly
bitter between the eastern Pashtun, Hezb-i-Islami followers of Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar, who were supported by Pakistan, and the Tajik fighters of Ahmed Shah
Massoud’s Jamiat-i-Islami, who came to control Kabul. Burhanuddin Rabbani, a
Tajik and the political head of the Jamiat-i-Islami group, was ultimately named
president; Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was designated prime minister of the interim
government; and Ahmed Shah Massoud was selected as defence minister. Sadly,
the government never met at the conference table, only on the urban battlefield.
The civil war featured fierce fighting over Kabul—occupied by Massoud but
desired by Hekmatyar, his archrival—and in some other major cities, which to that
point had escaped most active combat. From April 1992 to April 1993, much of
Kabul was destroyed and 30,000 inhabitants were killed, with another 100,000
wounded. In other cities, things were often more peaceful under the control of
local warlords, such as Ismail Khan in Herat and Abdul Rashid Dostum in Mazar-
iSharif. In many other places, however, law and order disintegrated. Local or
regional warlords were dominant and men with guns made the rules. In Kandahar
and other locations, rape, armed robbery, kidnapping young boys, and other
crimes of violence were all too common.
Fearing the instability growing in Afghanistan, and disenchanted with the
mujahideen groups it had assisted since 1980, the Pakistani government began to
slowly withdraw its support from them in 1994 in favor of Afghan and Pakistani
madrassa graduates called the Taliban, a group focused on sharia-based law and
order. The leaders of these students were radical Islamists, many of whom were
self-educated holy men. They were led by Mullah Mohammad Omar Akhund , a
country cleric from Kandahar and a former anti-Soviet resistance commander.
After a few small-scale local successes in the Kandahar region, a Taliban field force
with modern weaponry emerged from Pakistan, first operating around Kandahar
and then nationwide. They drew on recruits from extremist madrassa , those
located from Ghazni to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
The unified Taliban in 1994, took Kandahar and then other major cities. In 1996,
the disintegrating Rabbani regime lost Kabul to the Taliban, aided by the
defections of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani, who ended up allied
with the Taliban. In September 1996, the Taliban took Najibullah and his brother
from the UN Compound, tortured and killed them, dragged their bodies behind
vehicles, and then hung the pair on a lamppost near the Presidential Palace.
Commander Massoud made an orderly retreat to the north, where he was later
joined by Hazara fighters and Uzbeks under Commander Dostum.
The Taliban pursued and took Mazar-i-Sharif, lost it, and seized it again. On the
Taliban’s second capture in 1998, seeking revenge for past massacres against its
own cadres, its forces massacred Hazara defenders and also killed Iranian
diplomats, causing an international crisis that drove a deep divide between the
Sunni Taliban and the Shia regime in Tehran. In all, the new Northern Alliance of
Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara fighters never occupied more than 15–20 percent of the
countryside. The Taliban, aided by al Qaeda–trained Afghan and foreign cadres,
kept up pressure on the Northern Alliance until 2001.
The Taliban set up its capital in Kabul and appointed ministers, but the command
element remained in Kandahar with Mullah Omar. It often contradicted Kabul’s
repressive and at times ludicrous government. Clever with religious symbols,
Mullah Omar literally put on the cloak of the Prophet Mohammad, which was
kept in a Kandahar shrine, and proclaimed himself Amir-ul-Mominin, Commander
of the Faithful, raising his status among even the most radical extremists. Al
Qaeda seniors and the Pakistani Taliban have always accorded Mullah Omar great
respect and acknowledge him with his self-awarded title. The Taliban regime was
recognized as legitimate by only three nations: Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates,
and Saudi Arabia, though the latter two maintained only a limited diplomatic
presence in Kabul. The United States and United Nations continued to give aid to
the people, but Afghanistan’s seat at the United Nations and most embassies
abroad remained occupied by representatives of the previous regime led by
Rabbani.
The Rule of the Taliban
Having taken control of the country and implemented sharia-based law and order,
the Taliban appeared to be puzzled by how to run the government or manage the
economy, which went from bad to worse, especially when UN sanctions for
narcotics trafficking and droughts were added to the mix. Public health, in part
because of Taliban-imposed restrictions on the mobility of female midwives,
declined markedly. These failures were intimately connected to the Taliban itself
and what they practiced. They generally opposed progress and modernity.
In light of these leanings, the Taliban victory decrees were understandable and
even predictable. On taking Kabul, the Taliban’s decrees were among the most
repressive public policy decrees ever issued. Here are their cardinal elements:
✦✦ prohibition against female exposure [or being outside without burka and
male relative]
✦✦ prohibition against music
✦✦ prohibition against shaving
✦✦ mandatory prayer
✦✦ prohibition against the rearing of pigeons and bird fighting
✦✦ eradication of narcotics and the users thereof
✦✦ prohibition against kite flying
✦✦ prohibition against the reproduction of pictures
✦✦ prohibition against gambling
✦✦ prohibition against British and American hairstyles
✦✦ prohibition on interest on loans, exchange charges, and charges on
transactions
✦✦ prohibition against [women] washing clothes by the river embankments
✦✦ prohibition against music and dancing at weddings
✦✦ prohibition against playing drums
✦✦ prohibition against [male] tailors sewing women’s clothes or taking
measurements of women
✦✦ prohibition against witchcraft.
The Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Extermination of Sin was quite
active.
In addition to human rights violations, the Taliban declared war on art, no doubt
aided by their ascetic brethren in al Qaeda, who had similar puritanical beliefs.
Thousands of books were burned. The national museum in Kabul, the repository
of many pre-Islamic relics and works of art, was systematically vandalized by
Taliban operatives eager to rid Afghanistan of the graven images of its past. The
possession of Western-style fashion magazines became a crime. Works of art or
history books showing human faces or female forms were destroyed. At the
height of this fervor, against the objections of the UN and many nations, the
Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas, two pre-Islamic, 6th century A.D.
sandstone sculptures carved directly from a cliff—one 150 feet and the other 121
feet in height. The Taliban saw them as idols and not ancient works of art, a point
with which their al Qaeda benefactors agreed.
As heinous as their domestic policies were, the worst aspect of Taliban
governance was its virtual adoption of the al Qaeda terrorist organization. Osama
bin Laden came back to Afghanistan in 1996, shortly before the Taliban took
Kabul. He had fought there with the mujahideen for short periods during the
Soviet war. His duties had included a little fighting, much fund-raising in Pakistan,
and the supervision of construction efforts. After a few years at home, he was
ousted first from Saudi Arabia in 1991 for objecting to the introduction of U.S.
forces during the Gulf War, and then from Sudan in 1996 because he had become
a threat to the regime. Neither country would put up with his revolutionary
activities and radical ways.
Osama bin Laden reportedly saw Afghanistan as the first state in a new Islamic
caliphate. Although he did not know Mullah Omar beforehand, bin Laden held
him in high regard, and intermarriage took place between the inner circles of al
Qaeda and the Taliban. In return for his sanctuary and freedom of action, bin
Laden provided funds, advice, and, most important, trained cadres, Afghan or
otherwise, for the Taliban war machine. Pakistan was also generous in support of
its allies in Afghanistan, which it saw as a sure bulwark against Indian influence. In
1998 alone, Pakistan provided $6 million to the Taliban. In Afghanistan, bin Laden
took over or set up training camps for al Qaeda and Taliban recruits. As many as
20,000 Afghan and foreign recruits may have passed through the camps. Many of
these trainees received combat experience in fighting the Northern Alliance,
raising al Qaeda’s value in the eyes of the Taliban leadership. Afghanistan became
a prime destination for international terrorists. In February 1998, bin Laden
declared war on the United States from his safe haven in Afghanistan. Accusing
the Americans of occupying Arabia, plundering its riches, humiliating its leaders,
attacking Iraq, and more, bin Laden claimed that de facto the United States had
declared war on Islam and its people. In an allegedly binding fatwa, or religious
finding, bin Laden and his cosigners declared a defensive jihad that (theoretically)
all Muslims were required to participate in:
Further on, the fatwa exhorts “every Muslim . . . to kill the Americans and plunder
their possessions wherever he finds them and whenever he can.” Muslim leaders
and soldiers were also directed to “launch attacks against the armies of the
American devils” and their allies.
On August 7, 1998, al Qaeda carried out bombings on the U.S. Embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania in East Africa. Both Embassies were severely damaged. The
casualties, mostly African, numbered over 220 killed, and nearly 4,200 wounded.
Among other measures, U.S. retaliatory cruise missile strikes were aimed at al
Qaeda camps in Afghanistan to little effect. Before and after these attacks, a
numzber of plots to capture or kill bin Laden were stillborn due to sensitivities
about civilian casualties. Beginning in 1998, the United States and Saudi Arabia
both urged Afghanistan to surrender Osama bin Laden for legal proceedings. The
Taliban government resisted repeated efforts to extradite him even after he had
blown up two U.S. Embassies and, in October 2000, a U.S warship off the coast of
Yemen.
By 2001, al Qaeda was a terrorist group with its own state
9/11 and the War Against the Taliban Government :
It is not clear what al Qaeda’s leaders thought would happen in Afghanistan after
the 9/11 attacks. Perhaps, judging from recent practice, al Qaeda thought the
Bush administration, like some of its predecessors, would conduct a lengthy
investigation and be slow to take action. The United States had failed to take
significant retaliatory action after other terrorist attacks: the 1983 bombing of the
Marine Barracks in Lebanon, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the
1996 Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia, and the bombing of USS Cole in 2000.
Other terrorists no doubt believed that the United States would strike with its
airpower and cruise missiles, as it had done frequently in Iraq, and once in
Afghanistan after the Embassy bombings in 1998. Realists among the terrorists
might have believed that ultimately the United States would attack but that it
would get bogged down just as the Soviet Union did. Others, after the fact,
including Osama bin Laden, suggested that drawing the United States into the
Middle Eastern and Central Asian wars and draining its power was an integral part
of the al Qaeda strategy.
In any case, al Qaeda did not fully understand the passions that they would raise
in the United States and among its allies by the murder on 9/11 of 3,000 innocent
people from 90 countries. Washington asked the Taliban to turn over bin Laden.
Mullah Omar refused again as he had in 1998.
U.S. air attacks began on October 7, 2001. By month’s end, CIA paramilitary teams
had begun to operate with the Northern Alliance and friendly Pashtun tribes in
the south. Pakistan was an anomalous feature in this war. Desirous of influence in
Afghanistan, Pakistan had at first supported the more religious mujahideen
groups, and then the Taliban. After 9/11, American officials, including Deputy
Secretary of State Richard Armitage, gave senior Pakistani officials an alternative
to either support America or to be at war against it. With great prodding, Pakistan
came around, put pressure on the Afghan regime, and provided the United States
the logistic space and facilities needed to go to war.
Operation Enduring Freedom has had two phases in its war in Afghanistan. The
first—from October 2001 to March 2002—was an example of conventional
fighting, and the second of an evolved insurgency. The initial phase of Operation
Enduring Freedom was a conventional, network-centric military operation. It
featured the Northern Alliance—a united front of Tajiks, Hazara, and Uzbeks—and
anti-Taliban Pashtun forces fighting a war of maneuver against the Taliban and its
foreign-fighter supporters, many of whom were trained in al Qaeda camps in
Afghanistan. The U.S. contribution came in the form of airpower and advice from
Special Operations Forces and the Central Intelligence Agency paramilitary
personnel.
The last battle in the first phase, Operation Anaconda, was fraught with tactical
difficulties, but it broke up a hardcore Taliban and al Qaeda strongpoint in the
Shahi Kot valley, northwest of Khost. It also exposed defects in unity of command,
which were later corrected.
Overall, post-9/11, U.S. conventional operations were successful but not decisive.
The United States neither destroyed the enemy nor its will to resist. The Taliban
field forces were defeated, and the regime ousted, but Osama bin Laden, much of
the leadership of al Qaeda, as many as 1,000 of its fighters, Mullah Omar, and
much of the Taliban’s senior leaders escaped to safe havens in Pakistan and other
nearby countries.
Bonn Process:
With help from the international community, the United Nations called a
conference at Bonn, Germany. The United States and its allies did not invite even
the most moderate of the Taliban—and there were a few—to participate in the
Bonn Process to establish a new government. In retrospect, this may have been a
mistake, but it was understandable. No one was in a mood to sit down with the
discredited allies of al Qaeda, who had covered themselves with human rights
abuses and brought ruin down on themselves by supporting al Qaeda. As a result
of the conference, Afghan leaders formed an interim government without Taliban
participation. Hamid Karzai, was appointed president. The powerful, Tajik-
dominated Northern Alliance controlled the power ministries: Defense
(Mohammad Fahim Khan), Interior (Yunus Qanooni), and Foreign Affairs (Abdullah
Abdullah). The United Nations Security Council has recognized the legitimacy of
the government and renewed the ISAF mandate each year since the Bonn
Accords.
In Afghanistan in 2002, there were two salient conditions: it was
socioeconomically in the bottom 10 countries in the world, and it had almost no
human capital to build on. The international community soon pledged over $5
billion in aid and began the tough work of helping to rebuild a devastated country.
The aid did not meet Afghanistan’s needs.. Afghanistan rapidly became dependent
on aid that it did not control.
Early in 2002, with the help of the United States, the government created a new
Afghan National Army (ANA), with a target of 70,000 troops. An international
peacekeeping force, the International Security Assistance Force, at the start
consisting of about 4,000 non-U.S. soldiers and airmen, secured the Kabul region.
The Bush administration had a limited appetite for nation-building and only
wanted a small presence for counterterrorism and limited aid. Lead nations—the
United States for the Afghan National Army, the British for counternarcotics, the
Italians for the Justice sector, the Germans for police training, and the Japanese
for disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of combatants—moved out to
help in their respective areas but at a very slow pace.
In the latter, progress was slow but steady, and in the 3 years after the U.S.
intervention the Taliban appeared to be relatively dormant. Kabul, which was
guarded and patrolled by ISAF, remained reasonably calm. After more than two
decades of war, many believed that peace had come to the Hindu Kush.
The Taliban and al Qaeda, however, had other plans. They intended to launch an
insurgency to regain power in Kabul. Their hope was that the international
community would tire of nation-building under pressure and would ultimately
depart, leaving Karzai to the same horrible fate that befell Najibullah when they
seized Kabul in 1996. The Taliban had sanctuaries in Pakistan in the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas, the Northwest Frontier Province (Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa), Baluchistan in Pakistan, and other countries. Other Taliban leaders
found refuge among their coethnics in Karachi. The Taliban also had strong points
in a number of Afghan provinces, such as Helmand, where there were few
coalition or Afghan government forces until 2006. Along with the demise of the
Taliban had come the rebirth of the narcotics industry, a mark of poverty but also
an indicator of a new atmosphere of lawlessness. The Taliban, which had ended
the cultivation of poppy in the last year of their reign, encouraged its rebirth and
supported the movement with charity from the Gulf states, “taxes,” and profits
from the drug trade.
Given the U.S. record in Vietnam and Lebanon, as well as the recent U.S. response
to terrorist incidents, the Taliban had some reason to believe that time was on
their side.
The Second War Against the Taliban and the Struggle to Rebuild Afghanistan
The economy and society also suffered mightily from 5 years of Taliban
mismanagement and authoritarian rule, further complicated by years of drought.
The country they found was only 30 percent literate, and 80 percent of its schools
had been destroyed in various wars. The Taliban severely restricted female
education and did little for that of males. Twenty-five percent of all Afghan
children died before the age of five. Only 9 percent of the population had access
to health care. The professional and blue collar work forces had virtually
disappeared.
Starting from the rock bottom in nearly every category, the government of
Afghanistan and its coalition partners had a relatively easy time from 2002 to
2004. Progress was made in security, stabilization, and economic reconstruction..
Pursuant to the U.S. initiative and a series of NATO decisions, ISAF’s mandate was
increasingly enlarged until it took over all of the regions of Afghanistan. In the fall
of 2004, NATO and ISAF took charge of the regional command in the north. In the
spring of 2006, they took over the west. That summer, ISAF control moved into
the south, and in the fall it took over fighting and peacekeeping in the east,
marking ISAF command over coalition forces in the entire country. By 2006, most
U.S. forces were put under the new, enlarged, and empowered ISAF. While NATO’s
action brought the Alliance on line in Afghanistan, it also magnified the issue of
national “caveats” identified by capitals to limit the activities of their forces. Many
NATO nations do not allow their forces to engage in offensive combat operations.
The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands, and a
few others did most of the fighting and combat advising.
The government Afghanistan, with much help from the international community,
passed a modern constitution modeled on the 1964 Afghanistan constitution, and
held fair presidential and parliamentary elections in 2004 and 2005, respectively.
Sadly, the new constitution was highly centralized and gave the president much of
the power that the king held in the constitutional monarchy. While the Kabul
government was weak, it was responsible for policy and all significant personnel
appointments. Warlords still played major roles, but with Japanese funding and
UN leadership, the central government confiscated and cantoned all heavy
weapons. This process was called disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration.
By mid-2004, major fighting between warlords with heavy weapons was no longer
an important issue.
Afghanistan attracted a fair amount of international aid, but far less than the
Balkan nations did after their conflicts in the 1990s. U.S. security and economic
assistance from 2002 to 2004 was a modest $4.4 billion, but nearly two-thirds of it
went to economic assistance, leaving slightly more than a third for security
assistance. From 2002 to 2004, the average yearly U.S. security and economic
assistance, per capita, was only $52 per Afghan. Initiatives by so-called lead
nations generally proved disappointing.
On the security front, the build-up of the Afghan National Army was slow but
deliberate. The ANA was small but successful and popular among the people.
Police development in the first few years was very slow and unproductive, except
in the German-sponsored education of commissioned officers. By 2008, 70
percent of U.S. funds went to security assistance or counternarcotics.
With the help of the international community, there was rapid reconstruction in
health care and education. The United States and international financial
institutions began to rebuild the Ring Road, furthering travel and commerce.
Access to medical care was extended from 9 percent of the population under the
Taliban to 85 percent by 2010. Spurred by foreign aid, rapid legal economic
growth began and has continued, but it exists alongside a booming illegal
economy marked by bribery, smuggling, and narcotics trafficking.
2009: Number of soldiers peaks under Obama
In 2009, in the first months of the presidency of Barack Obama - elected on
campaign promises to end the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - there is a surge
in the number of American soldiers in Afghanistan to around 68,000.
In December, Obama raises the strength of US forces in Afghanistan to around
100,000. The objective, the US says, is to put brakes on the Taliban and to
strengthen Afghan institutions.

2011: Bin Laden killed in Pakistan

Al-Qaeda leader Bin Laden, alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks that started
the war, is killed on May 2, 2011 during an operation,named operation Neptune
Spear , by US special forces in Pakistan, where he is in hiding.

2014: End of combat operations

In September 2014, Afghanistan signs a bilateral security accord with the US and a
similar text with NATO: 12,500 foreign soldiers, of which 9,800 are Americans, will
remain in the country in 2015, after the end of the NATO combat mission at the
end of 2014.
From the beginning of 2015, American troops will be charged with two missions:
"anti-terrorist" operations against al-Qaeda and training Afghan forces.
Amid a resurgent Taliban, on July 6, 2016, Obama again slows down the pace of
withdrawal, saying that 8,400 US troops will remain in Afghanistan into 2017.

2015: US bombs MSF clinic

On October 3, 2015, at the height of combat between armed groups and the
Afghan army, backed by NATO special forces, a US air raid bombs a hospital run by
Medecins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) in northern Kunduz province,
killing 42, including 24 patients and 14 members of the NGO.

April, 2017: 'MOAB' - Mega bomb against ISIL(massive ordnance air blast)
On April 13, 2017, the US military drops the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever
used in combat, hitting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as
ISIS) group positions in a network of tunnels and caves in the east, killing 96
fighters.
In July, the American army kills the ISIL's new leader in Afghanistan, the third such
chief slain by Washington and Kabul.

Feb - August, 2017: New strategy 

On February 1, 2017, a US government report says that losses of Afghan security
forces have climbed by 35 percent in 2016 compared with the previous year.
On February 9, the US general in command of the NATO force, General John
Nicholson, warns that he needs thousands more troops, telling Congress: "I
believe we're in a stalemate."
On August 21, Trump cleared the way for the deployment of thousands more US
troops to Afghanistan in his first formal address to the nation as commander-in-
chief.
Senior White House officials say Trump has already authorised Mattis to deploy up
to 3,900 more troops to Afghanistan.

PEACE PROCESS

First attempts to initiate peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan
government to establish peace in Afghanistan came to the fore during Obama’s
term. Still, the efforts between 2011 and 2013 failed. The talks planned to be held
in Doha, the capital of Qatar, in June 2013 were canceled by President Hamid
Karzai due to the Taliban hanging the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” sign and
the so-called flag at the office where the negotiations were to be conducted. The
office was closed a month later, and peace negotiations were suspended for a long
time. Three years later, a meeting was held with the participation of the US and
China and led by Pakistan, however, the Taliban-Kabul peace meeting in 2016
wasn’t successful either.

Trump, who took office in the US the following year, brought the Afghanistan
peace talks back to the agenda and made efforts to start negotiations between
the government and the organization. The Ashraf Ghani administration, who
supported this initiative, stated that they were ready to negotiate with the Taliban
with no preconditions and also made various promises to the organization (such
as the recognition of the Taliban as a political party and releasing of the Taliban
elements in prison), extending an olive branch to it. However, this step taken by
Ghani was not met with the necessary appreciation and approval from the
Taliban; on the contrary, the Taliban once again turned its back on the Kabul
government, stating that it would be addressing itself to the US only and not to
Ghani.

The Taliban has abandoned its tough and uncompromising attitude since 2018,
albeit in a limited way. At the least, representatives from the US and Taliban met
in Doha, for the first time, for peace talks in February 2019. As a result of the
negotiations, which lasted for about six months, it was announced that the US and
the Taliban were close to coming to an agreement.

However, this positive mood in August 2019 shortly disappeared. The following
month, the Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad
announced that an agreement was reached between the parties and that Trump’s
approval was sought. Trump declared that he had shelved the deal after a US
soldier dying in the terrorist attack in Kabul.

However, in December 2019, the talks between the US and the Taliban resumed,
and thus, the idea that the peace talks between Khalilzad and Taliban officials had
come to an end gradually gained traction, and for the first time, it was witnessed
that peace negotiations with the Taliban became so tangible.

Various new decisions were made on issues such as the “reduction of violence,”
“withdrawal of foreign troops from the country,” “negotiations within
Afghanistan,” and “counter-terrorism guarantees” within the framework of the
US-Taliban Peace Agreement negotiations. However, these decisions have brought
some new problems to the agenda.

finally on feb 29 2020 in Doha ,Qatar the united states and afghan taliban singed a
peace agreement designed to end the longest overseae war of America. Initially
May 1st was announced by president trump to pull out American troops from
afghanistan . by the change of government in America the Biden administration
has announced the new date of American with drawl by sep 11 .

Afghanistan post 2014: Security implications for Pakistan

The word peace, used for Afghanistan, is not used in absolute terms rather
relative. The memories of civil war erupting in Afghanistan after US withdrawal
following Soviet disintegration are fresh in international politics. Western World
does not want another Islamic Emirate of Mullah Omer over there. This situation
can only be averted if a successful reconciliation process brings all Afghans to
Kabul and give them share in prospective government. Any situation in
Afghanistan will bring about same results for Pakistan.

Insurgencies:

Pakistan is particularly concerned about insurgencies in its tribal areas along

Afghan border in KPK and Baluchistan. In FATA, the security concern is TTP (Tehrik-
e-Taliban Pakistan). This group has rivalries within and is without any single
leadership. This threat will surge with US withdrawal and it is most likely that
Pakistan will have to pour in more force in this belt. Separatist movements of
Baluchistan and their external support through Afghanistan is another security
issue. Pakistan has been mentioning its reservations on Indian support for
insurgencies in its border areas. Although, it is believed that with US withdrawal
this support will decrease but the potential and connections of these terrorist
outfits will keep on daunting security agencies .

The negative impacts on Pakistani security are plausible on policy making elite and
it has been taking serious steps since 2012 specially. Afghan refugees have found
shelter in Pakistan for long. But for last few years Pakistan had been working out
their return to back home. Pakistan has clearly given its policy direction to
respond this and Ambassador to United States, Jalil Abbas Jillani, stated that
Pakistan deemed complete withdrawal of coalition forces.

Afghanistan post 2014-Regional security and Foreign Policy compulsions for

Pakistan

South Asia is one of the most important regions on the planet. It has been
neglected yet but now and onwards it is going to be focus of global concentration.
The region inhabits about half of global population and witnesses major conflicts.
Four nuclear states in this part of Earth compete for their national interests and
security concerns. These realities make it a volatile region. United States policy of
focus on South East Asia and checking China also makes this part relevant.
Pakistan has to respond concomitantly to eschew another period of isolation.

India

India sees Afghanistan a potential ally to counter Pakistan and aims at hitting
Pakistan’s ‘Strategic Depth’ policy. It maintained relations with Northern Alliance
and exploited their grievance for Pakistan. Taliban had been source of irritation for
India and it is concerned of its dominant role in Kabul due to this group’s intimacy
with Pakistan. A potential route to Central Asia and a link to ‘New Silk Road’ make
Afghanistan more attractive and win focal position in Indian foreign policy. India
has invested about $2 billion in different sectors. It is now taking deep interest in
troops training, energy sector and governance after 2014 . India has also
constructed road to Iranian border to link landlocked Afghanistan to Chahbahar
port of Iran in Strait of Hormuz. The remarkable achievement for India is Strategic
Partnership Agreement signed in 2011 which ensures enduring relations.

Pakistan has always responded in Afghanistan and its relations depended on

threat from India. All Indian efforts are to deny Pakistani influence in Kabul as
earlier and delink it from benefits in Afghanistan. Indian aspirations to emerge as
a regional hegemon draw its attention in Afghanistan. Although Indian private
sector has only invested $25 million so far yet government is deeply involved in
providing financial assistance and training to staff in health, education and military
sectors. Another investment of $10-12 billion is in pipeline . These all facts put a
cumbersome responsibility on Pakistan to safeguard its interest. Afghan tilt
towards India is not hidden since 1947. A comprehensive policy is needed to
address this growing threat in neighborhood.

China

China is not a major stakeholder in Afghanistan in terms of investment except gas

pipeline from Central Asia. However secure Afghanistan is as much important for
China as much for other region. It is particularly concerned about East Turkestan
Islamic Movement, separatist group in China. It still keeps up its policy of ‘Non-
intervention’ but reemergence of Taliban is equally perplexing for it. China has not
agreed to assist in $4.1billion assistance program for troops after 2014 but has
undertaken to provide training to some troops. . China Shows Interest in Afghan
Security, Fearing Taliban Would Help Separatists. . To ensure long term
engagement China and Afghanistan have signed Strategic Partnership agreement.
For Pakistan China is one of the most important partners. It becomes necessary to
care for its concerns as it also involves Pakistan directly.

Iran

Iran shares a common border with Afghanistan. Iran deems western Afghanistan
as its part as it was under Persian Empire. Iran’s Interests in Afghanistan are still
vital owing to Afghan Shia population and afghan security impact on Iran. Iran may
offer its Chahbahar port for logistic support to NATO forces when they need it.
This convergence of interests will further marginalize Pakistan and its options will
remain less.

Russia and Central Asia

Russia is re-emerging economic giant and it is concerned about Afghanistan due to

any harm to its security. It needs a stable regional environment to carry out its
options. Since Bonn , it has showed keen interest in Afghanistan to bring any
formula on table which may accelerate stability. Central Asian Republics have
immense economic potential and mineral resources to offer to emerging
economic giants. These states are desperately looking forward to offer their
resources to achieve their economic stability. They are landlocked and their
dependence is definitely on Afghanistan. Thus, stability in Afghanistan is vital for
their interests.

Gulf States

Saudi Arabia and other gulf states have always supporter Taliban. The Afghan
Jihad was carried out with their generous funds. Their interest still remains in
Afghanistan to contain their rivals. Their interests will be met when the Afghan
government has sufficient Taliban representation. This refers to another Gulf crisis
on the Afghan land perhaps this time. They need to maintain their presence after
NATO withdrawal to contain Iranian influence In Afghanistan.

Findings

The above research has put forward certain facts about Afghanistan post 2014
and its security implications for Pakistan:

1. Afghanistan is not ready for NATO forces withdrawal. The arrangements for
security, governance and administration are not in any way satisfactory to run the
state smoothly.

2. The ethnic composition of Afghanistan and their tribal history of fighting put
forward a huge challenge. Afghanistan is at war continuously since thirteenth
century either with powers invading it or within.

3. Pakistan is directly affected by Afghan conflict and with coalition forces

withdrawal the security of Pakistan will be affected much. The loss Pakistan has
absorbed in aftermath of war on Terror may increase many folds.

4. Pakistan will be faced with foreign policy challenges in upcoming situation as all
global and regional powers will trying to assert themselves in Afghanistan.

 Suggestions

The challenges which Pakistan is faced with demand a well deliberated policy to
minimize the loss Pakistan can bear. Some suggestions:
 1. Pakistan’s security is at stake immensely after 2014. Militancy within Pakistan is
a major challenge. Before NATO withdrawal, Pakistan needs to draw down a policy
to reach out all such militant groups and settle this matter before re-emergence of
militancy in Afghanistan.

2. The NATO withdrawal will give more space of action to militants on both sides
of border. Pakistani government must chalk out foreign policy to take Afghan
government on board to deny safe havens to such groups.

3. Pakistan needs to exert its influence on Taliban to reach a settlement plan for
forming government. The world is looking towards Pakistan for its influence. But
this time Pakistan cannot afford to neglect other factions in Afghan government.

4. Pakistan needs a diversified foreign policy to maintain relations with all

regional states and avoid confrontation in Afghanistan.

5. Pakistan must put special attention on regional economic integration to engage

with all states.

6. Indian presence in Afghanistan is of special importance for Pakistan. Instead of

directly inflicting with them Pakistan must reach out to all stakeholders in
Afghanistan and try to win their trust.

Conclusion

Pakistan and Afghanistan share so much commonalities i-e, religion, culture,

races. The politics of one affect the other widely. The security and politics of both
nations share so much that any event in Afghanistan distresses Pakistan’s defense
and foreign policy. The regional states see their interests in Afghanistan and try to
attain their interests. This scenario poses Pakistan with a new challenge to be
dealt with wisely. The Pakistani economic downfall is the outcome of War on
Terror and degradation in security. Pakistan needs to consider its own interests
and chalk out strategy to meet its interests.

COMPILED BY :

MR. USMAN NIAZ