US withdrawal rattles Afghan allies and adversaries alike

A patrolling US armoured vehicle is reflected in the mirror of a car in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo / AP file

An accelerated United States troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, announced by Washington this week, has rattled both allies and adversaries.

There are fears of worsening violence and regional chaos, which some say could embolden the local Isis affiliate to regroup and perhaps even try to build another "caliphate."

Under an earlier deal between the US and the Taliban that outlined a gradual pullout, the remaining US forces were to leave Afghanistan by April.

The Pentagon now says some 2500 troops will leave by January, just days before President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, leaving another 2000 or so US forces in place. Biden has said he prefers a small, intelligence-driven, counterterrorism presence in Afghanistan.

A US withdrawal would be welcome in most of rural Afghanistan where civilians are increasingly caught in the crossfire between Taliban and government forces, said Torek Farhadi, a former Afghan government adviser and political analyst.

"After a bombing by any side of the conflict, no one has gone back to rebuild any infrastructure. No one has really worked on healing hearts and minds," he said.

The morning after the withdrawal, as we walked past rebel lines on the hill overlooking the city, we were met by a growing crowd of wary locals, incredulous at the sight of the unshaven foreigners strolling into downtown Kabul. https://t.co/VS0TVU9mJJ

— ABC News (@ABC) November 18, 2020

The US-Taliban deal, signed in February, was largely propelled by Washington's fear of an expanding Isis affiliate in Afghanistan, said a US Defence Department official.

With terrorist plots that he said had links to Afghanistan, Washington sought a deal with the Taliban that would bring them into a coordinated fight — along with Afghan security forces — against Isis, which lost its self-proclaimed "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq.

A US-led coalition toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan for harbouring former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden following the September 11, 2001, attacks. The Taliban has regained strength in recent years in the country, although Isis and a degraded al-Qaeda still carry out attacks in the region.

Donald Trump's plan to reduce US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq to 2,500 each by mid-January is a slap in the face of US allies and strengthens extremism | OPINION https://t.co/WYk3CkPg3c

— DW News (@dwnews) November 18, 2020

"Washington has looked at Afghanistan largely through a counterterrorism lens. And that will certainly be the case for the incoming Biden administration," said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Wilson Centre.

Nato has fewer than 12,000 troops helping to train and advise Afghan national security forces. The 30-nation alliance relies heavily on the US armed forces for transport, logistics and other support.

Kugelman said President Donald Trump's approach to ending America's longest war was always a gamble.

"While the idea of the Taliban making peace with the Afghan Government and then working together to target Isis sounds great in theory, it's a very tall order, and especially anytime soon."

A US military/intel presence in Afghanistan beyond April could break the deal with the Taliban, triggering a rise in violence in Afghanistan during the summer and draw the U.S. deeper into the war.

More on that in my article linked here:https://t.co/5MizgrdISO

— Arif Rafiq (@ArifCRafiq) November 18, 2020

A Biden administration strategy of maintaining a residual force — even a narrowly focused one — would require a renegotiated deal with the Taliban, which the insurgent movement has already rejected. The Afghan government, which has complained bitterly about being sidelined in US negotiations with the Taliban, wants the deal scrapped entirely.

With word this week of the accelerated US troop withdrawal, Afghans also fear powerful warlords in Kabul with a long history of infighting could again turn their guns on each other once the current deterrence of an international troop presence is sharply reduced.

"One of the most critical roles of the US in Afghanistan ... is to keep their own Afghan allies from fighting among themselves and bringing down the state," said Anatol Lieven, a New America Foundation Senior Fellow at Georgetown University's Qatar campus. "It seems unlikely, however, that the US will be willing or able to do this indefinitely."

Germany warns against a "premature" US withdrawal from Afghanistan.https://t.co/pMnYaKKuze

— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) November 18, 2020

Analysts fear the accelerated withdrawal could significantly compromise the defence capabilities of Afghanistan's forces. Kugelman says even a small number of US forces can have an impact on the direction of the war.

"The numbers (of troops being pulled out) may seem small, and they are, but the impacts of even small numbers of troops are considerable," he said. "US air power has helped Afghan ground forces repel Taliban offensives. US troops help strengthen much-needed capacity within Afghan security forces."

Yet Afghanistan's acting Defence Minister Asadullah Khalid told Parliament that the security forces were holding their own and only 4 per cent of their operations need US air assistance.

A bunch of Afghanistan wonks are lobbying Biden foreign policy team to retain Trump's Afghanistan envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, after the inauguration, and Biden's advisors are chewing on it, by me @RobbieGramer and @JackDetsch https://t.co/YfqIA0f8GW

— columlynch (@columlynch) November 18, 2020

"There might be up and down in numbers of troops, but we are not concerned. We are ready to defend Afghanistan independently," Khalid told MPs.

Afghanistan remains desperately poor, even after 20 years and billions of dollars in investment. More than 25 million of its 36 million people survive on barely US$1.40 a day. For many, the presence of international forces brings little relief.

"There's certainly good reason to believe that the US is wearing out its welcome in Afghanistan, given its inability to rein in rising insurgent and terrorist violence and given its own contribution to the violence through actions that maim and kill civilians," Kugelman said. "And that's aside from perceptions of US complicity in Kabul's corruption."

Afghanistan's Government is among the world's 10 most corrupt, according to Transparency International. Since 2002, Washington's own watchdog says the US has lost US$19 billion of aid to Afghanistan to waste, abuse and fraud.

An SAS patrol member's final message before the Afghanistan war crimes report release today: 'I think those people should go to jail' https://t.co/RSQQCbKu8Y

— Mark Willacy (@markwillacy) November 18, 2020

The US spends US$4 billion a year on Afghanistan's National Security and Defence Forces, yet relentless violence in the country has been demoralising and US air power has been the key to the ability of Afghan forces to hold territory against Taliban onslaughts.

Afghanistan's security forces also have been degraded by corruption. According to an August report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, about half of all police in the Taliban strongholds of the southern provinces use drugs and up to 70 per cent of police positions in those regions are "ghost" jobs — in which they are not actually filled but the salaries are diverted to officials on the take.

Pakistan has been critical in getting the Taliban to the table, and Prime Minister Imran Khan has warned against a messy retreat by US troops, fearing that the chaos in Afghanistan will spill into Pakistan, which still houses nearly two million Afghan refugees from four decades of war.

But Kabul worries about Pakistan might use proxy Taliban fighters to retaliate if Islamabad feels threatened by India-sponsored attacks from Afghan territory.

- AP