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by thomas gibbons-neff

new york times

august 30,2020

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KABUL, Afghanistan ~ Rockets launched at a U.S. military base and a joint U.S.-Afghan airfield in southern Afghanistan in recent weeks are believed to have been fired by the Taliban, according to three American military officials, in what would amount to a clear breach of the peace agreement between the United States and the insurgent group.

Roughly a dozen rockets struck in late July around Camp Bastion, a sprawling air base used by Afghan and American forces in the southern province of Helmand.  And several rockets were fired within the last week or so at Camp Dwyer, a large U.S. military base about 50 miles south of Bastion.

A Taliban commander familiar with the region denied that the group had carried  out any strikes on American bases in Helmand and said that the group would investigate.  The rocket strikes may also have been carried out by a Taliban faction that is against the agreement, according to one military official who was briefed on the matter.

There were no U.S. casualties in either attack, nor a public response from Washington during a stretch in which American officials have struggled to keep an already shaky peace process on track.

The American-led mission in Afghanistan also declined to comment.

Helmand Province, long considered the Taliban’s heartland and its opium-fueled financial breadbasket, is predominantly controlled by the insurgent group, though well-armed drug barons and differing tribal affiliations ensure that many allegiances and agendas in the region are murky.  Afghan government forces there are mostly constrained to the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, and some villages that serve as district centers.

The February peace deal signed in Doha, the capital of Qatar, stipulates that the Taliban would refrain from striking American or NATO forces as they gradually withdrew from the country.  And the U.S. military would attack the Taliban only to defend Afghan forces.

The Taliban, long thought to be a conglomerate of various factions with differing agendas, seem to have largely stayed true to the agreement as a unified front, at least publicly, when it comes to not attacking American or coalition forces.  But as the Taliban have continued to mount heavy assaults against the Afghan military forces, the United States has carried out dozens of airstrikes to help the Afghans, officials say.

Another sticking point is the Taliban’s reluctance to condemn Al Qaeda, the terrorist group that carried out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and was harbored by the Taliban.  A clearly defined tenet of the Feb. 29 peace agreement calls for the Taliban to sever all ties with Al Qaeda before the total withdrawal of U.S. troops.  Pentagon officials believe Qaeda fighters continue to be well ingrained with Taliban rank and file.

Gen. Austin S. Miller, the commander of the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan, said last week that there was a “debate” on Taliban ties to Al Qaeda.

“There are very strict commitments there and they must be upheld,” General Miller told ITV, an Afghan news outlet.

Violations of the Feb. 29 deal are often raised privately by Taliban and U.S. officials through a communication channel established after the agreement’s signing.  Publicly, the Taliban have denounced the United States for carrying out airstrikes on their fighters, claiming the Americans were violating the deal.

“This is one part of a bigger picture,” said Andrew Watkins, a senior analyst on Afghanistan for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based conflict resolution organization.

“The military’s general silence or lack of comment of what seems to be an ongoing dynamic in the conflict feels like a reflection of a larger trend of the Americans willing to overlook ambiguities in how the February agreement is being upheld in the interest of not jeopardizing an agreement that already feels very fragile.”

In the recent attacks, the Taliban fired rockets from several miles away that were mostly inaccurate, said one military official familiar with the events.  After rockets struck Camp Dwyer, American aircraft retaliated by striking the launch site, destroying a cluster of munitions that had yet to be fired, the official said.

Camp Dwyer, a British base that was turned over to the Americans at the height of the war, is quietly becoming the strategic hub for American troops remaining in southern Afghanistan.

The U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan has plans to shuttle troops to Camp Dwyer from its large airfield in Kandahar before closing the base in Kandahar altogether in the coming months, according to military officials.  Under the February agreement, five American bases were closed and handed over to Afghan forces.

Camp Bastion was once the logistics hub for U.S. and NATO troops in Helmand Province.  Conjoined by the U.S. Marine base Camp Leatherneck, the base was handed over to the Afghan security forces in 2014.

Several months later, as the Taliban began retaking much of the province, American forces returned, establishing a small base there and using the airfield for helicopter refueling and other operations.

There are roughly 8,000 U.S. troops still in Afghanistan, with plans to draw down to about 4,500 by the fall.  Four American service members have been killed during combat operations this year, a relatively small number compared to this time in 2019, when more than a dozen U.S. troops had already been killed.

The Afghan government and the Taliban are stalled on the cusp of direct negotiations in Qatar as a dispute continues about a prisoner exchange on both sides.

Under the deal between the United States and the Taliban, which initiated the phased withdrawal of American troops, direct peace negotiations between the Afghan sides were conditioned on swapping 5,000 Taliban prisoners with 1,000 Afghan security forces held by the insurgents.

While the Taliban has released the Afghan prisoners, President Ashraf Ghani was reluctant to release 400 Taliban prisoners accused of serious crimes until a consultative assembly, convened this month, approved their release.

The talks were expected to begin in a matter of days after Mr. Ghani decreed the release of the last prisoners.  But new hiccups have emerged:  The Afghan government has conditioned the release of the Taliban on the freeing of more than a dozen Afghan commandos and pilots the insurgents are holding.  Australia, France and the United States have also expressed concerns about the release of half a dozen prisoners.

While France and Australia do not want those members of the Taliban accused of attacks on their citizens released, the United States has said it has reason to believe two of the Taliban fighters to be released would join the Islamic State, a senior Afghan official said.

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taimoor shaw in kandahar and mujib mashal in kabul contributed to this article…

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by susannah george & aziz tassal

washington post

august 10, 2020

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MAIDAN SHAR, Afghanistan ~ In one of the most heavily contested provinces in Afghanistan, the government’s control ends just two miles from the governor’s residence.  Beyond that point, Taliban influence reigns.

The balance of power in Wardak province held relatively steady for years.  But since the signing of a U.S.-Taliban peace deal in February, Taliban influence has grown here and in other key parts of the country.

An uptick in violence, aimed at giving the militant group leverage in upcoming  talks with the Afghan government, has caused hundreds of civilian and combatant casualties, and is undermining local government officials.

“It’s created a great distance between us and the people,” said Esmatullah Azim, a local politician in the province.  He said fewer civilians are approaching him for help with compensation or for an explanation of the violence.  Instead, they’re turning to the Taliban.

“The people blame the government for the delay in peace talks.  They are hungry for peace and want it any way and any how.  Instead, day by day, the Taliban are getting stronger.”

Under the U.S.-Taliban agreement, the Afghan-Taliban peace talks were slated to begin in March.  But they were delayed for months by a presidential power crises in Kabul, increased levels of violence and a controversial prisoner exchange that was finalized only Sunday.  The talks are now expected to launch this month in Doha.  U.S. officials have said they will bring a drop in violence.

Washington Post reporters traveled to Maidan Shar this month during the three-day cease-fire for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.  Wardak lies along one of Afghanistan’s most dangerous highways, but during the cease-fire, the road was free from clashes and Taliban fighters temporarily disbanded their checkpoints.

The cease-fire was a brief reprieve during an otherwise intensely violent period.  Police at the security outposts that mark the end of government control and the beginning of Taliban influence have reported increased assaults by the militants.  And in districts beyond the government’s reach, civilians report heavier use of government artillery.

More than 3,400 civilians have been killed and wounded since the signing of the U.S.-Taliban deal, according to Afghan government figures.  The casualties are comparable to those of the months leading up to the agreement, which were among the highest on record.

Local officials warn that the persistent violence is helping the Taliban.  They fear the militants are now in a stronger position as they enter delicate negotiations with Kabul to redistribute power across the country and shape the government that will rule postwar Afghanistan.

Naimatullah Naimat, the head of the emergency room at Maidan Shar’s main hospital, said he’s seen the number of wounded coming for treatment increase.

“It wasn’t only me ~ all Afghans had the same expectation, that there would be a decrease in the violence,” he said.  “But unfortunately that hasn’t been the case.”

Naimat said patients from rural parts of the province blame the government for their injuries and the deaths of loved ones.  “If there is an operation in a village [that causes casualties], people think it’s the government who is killing them,” he said.

Data collected by the United Nations suggests otherwise.  The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan attributed more civilian casualties in the first half of the year to anti-government armed groups than to government forces.  Taliban forces were responsible for 43 percent of all civilian casualties, the mission said in its most recent U.N. report; government forces were responsible for 23 percent.

The U.S.-Taliban deal did not require a reduction in violence, but U.S. officials said violence was “expected” to remain low after the signing.  The week before the signing saw a drop in violence of more than 70%.

But within days, it surged again, the only relief being two temporary cease-fires for holidays.

Officials in other contested provinces echoed Azim, saying increased violence following the deal has undermined local governance.

“The people have lost trust in the government,” said Himidullah Nawroz, the head of Ghazni’s provincial council.  “Instead, their trust in the Taliban has increased.”

Nawroz clarified that he doesn’t believe most Afghans in his province trust the Taliban to be just rulers.  But the deal with the United States gave legitimacy to the militants in the eyes of many Afghans, and has made them appear to be a more reliable source of security than the government.

Before the deal was made public, Nawroz said, people in his province had hoped some form of a power-sharing government would rule postwar Afghanistan.  “Now people think it’s inevitable the Taliban will take complete control,”

Hundreds of Afghan troops and police have been killed or wounded over the past five months.  At the height of the violence in June, 291 security forces were killed and 550 wounded in a single week, according to Afghanistan’s national security council.

In Wardak on a recent afternoon, half a dozen police were stationed at a dusty checkpoint just beyond the governor’s compound, atop a mound of discarded concrete and mesh barriers that delineate the end of government-controlled territory.

“There’s fighting every night,” said Jamshed Afghan, a 19-year-old police officer.  “And every day we hear that the Taliban overran another checkpoint.”  He said he believes clashes with Afghan forces have increased since the U.S. deal because the Taliban no longer devote resources and fighters to U.S. targets.  And with few U.S. airstrikes, the militants are under less military pressure.

Afghan pointed to a handful of places along the perimeter of the outpost where recent Taliban attacks have killed members of his unit.  A small gap in a line of concrete barrier walls, he said, was “where they shot our friend.”  Muhammed Azim, 27, was killed just days before the Eid cease-fire.  He left three small children.

“Of course it brings our morale down,” Afghan said.  “The Taliban are becoming stronger, and without the Americans they can turn their faces to us completely.”

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The Washington Post’s Sharif Hassan in Kabul contributed to this report.

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