Who wants to keep Afghanistan volatile and why?

— Imtiaz Gul says US wants to extend its presence in Afghanistan to target CPEC and keep a check on China

— Tahir Khan says the influence of Pakistani religious scholars over Afghan Taliban can be used to bring the later to the negotiating table

ISLAMABAD: The recent surge in violent attacks in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul and the subsequent announcement by the United States (US) President Donald Trump about refusing to hold talks with Afghan Taliban suggests that the suffering of the Afghan people is far from over.

The situation was made worse after Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani reportedly snubbed Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi during a condolence call. President Ghani’s actions have been very aggressive lately which reflected the frustration of the Afghan government over failing to secure political space in a weakening regime as the Afghan Taliban continue to increase their influence with each passing day.

The situation is being closely observed by analysts who believed that some powerful circles wanted to keep Afghanistan burning, perhaps to justify the presence of US forces there. The experts believed that the possible objectives could be to counter the increasing Russian influence in the region, sabotage China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and keep a check on China and Iran through an unstable government in Afghanistan and thriving terrorist organisations like the Taliban and Daesh.

While the ground situation in Afghanistan suggested that the US forces in unison with the Afghan National Army have failed in countering the Taliban influence, recent reports from the US and the United Kingdom (UK) also concluded that the Taliban were tightening their grip over Afghanistan before the beginning of the famous spring offensive to be launched later in March.

A British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) report released this week said that Afghan Taliban actively controlled around 70 per cent of Afghanistan’s territory, despite the fact that US-led forces were spending billions of dollars to defeat them. Months of research across the country showed how the number of areas threatened by Taliban have surged since the foreign combat troops left in 2014, the BBC study found. Though the Afghan government played down the report by saying that it controlled most areas, no concrete evidence was shared to counter the report.

A successive US report released by SIGAR had corroborated findings of the BBC report, alleging that the Trump administration was instructing it to conceal information from its own citizens about all those areas that were under the control of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Background interactions with diplomatic officials and interviews with experts on Afghanistan have revealed that international powers wanted to keep Afghanistan volatile to rationalise the presence of US troops in the country due to its unique geographical and strategic location.

A senior diplomat, requesting anonymity, told this scribe that it was intriguing to note that the US administration had been pressing Pakistan since long to help them bring peace and tranquillity to Afghanistan by bringing the Afghan Taliban to the dialogue table.

“Pakistan facilitated the resumption of the dialogue process after years of efforts and in this connection, a Taliban delegation also visited Pakistan last week. This visit was also confirmed by Taliban officially. But just when a breakthrough was about to be made, a string of terrorist attacks rocked Kabul. This was backed by President Trump’s refusal to talk to the Taliban, despite the fact that the US and Afghan forces have been losing ground to Taliban and there has been no let up in terrorist attacks,” the official said.

The official recalled that in the past when Pakistan had facilitated a similar peace dialogue where representatives from Pakistan, Afghanistan, US and Taliban had held talks in Murree, the hill resort near Pakistan’s capital Islamabad. But the peace talks ended abruptly when US troops droned the vehicle of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour.

Talking to Pakistan Today, Afghan affairs analyst Imtiaz Gul said that since 2017, around 20 terrorist attacks have struck Kabul and the majority of attacks have been claimed by Daesh. He said that it was unfair to blame the Haqqani network for every terrorist attack in Kabul because most the attacks have been claimed by Daesh.

He further said that, “Trump’s refusal to hold peace talks has now made it clear to all and sundry that President Trump would be calling the shots on Afghanistan’s fate and President Ghani was a nobody in this scenario.”

He said that the US establishment wanted to keep Afghanistan burning, and the continuation of fighting provided the US forces with the logic to remain in Afghanistan. This also provided an opportunity for the US to keep Pakistan under a constant pressure in an effort to influence Pakistan-China ties.

“Prima facie, it seems that China is the actual target of the American administration. Moreover, it would also lead towards the destabilisation of Pakistan through a volatile Afghanistan to prevent the former from achieving economic stability,” he added.

Tahir Khan, another commentator on Afghan affairs, said that whenever Pakistan initiated a peace process, terrorist attacks in Kabul derailed the process. “Perhaps there are elements among the Taliban who want to derail the peace talks. Pakistani religious scholars still have an influence over the Afghan Taliban, and there is a need to reinforce efforts to bring Taliban to the dialogue table,” he added.

Murtaza Solangi said that it had become a routine in Afghanistan after former President Hamid Karzai’s regime to blame Pakistan whenever a terrorist attack took place in Kabul. He said that while the US forces were unable to defeat the Taliban, it was ironic to note that the US administration refused to initiate a dialogue with its adversaries.