What and who can stop Taliban’s re-entry to Kabul?

A glance into the BBC’s Alastair Leithead’s reportage of Wardak Province and the New York Times’ Carlotta Gall’s feature from Salar District reminded me of 27 September 1996 when Taliban fighters entered into Kabul city, lynched a former president and embarked a long era of violent demagogy.

Since 2002 Afghans and internationals alike have called the Taliban’s comeback to power all but possible.

We have put an enormous and unwavering confidence in the US and NATO military might that any Taliban’s desire to rule again on Kabul will be repelled promptly.

Until the invasion of Iraq in 2003 there was also a widespread condemnation of the Taliban’s draconian rules and alleged nexus with international terrorists.

Until late 2004 even foreigners like Mr. Leithead and Ms. Gall could easily travel all around Afghanistan to report how easily and quickly the powerful British and American armies had defeated their enemies.

However much has changed both for foreigners and Afghans in the war-racked country.

The insurgents are knocking at Kabul’s doors and the whole country has been plunged into virtual anarchism, and everyday scores of people, a majority of them civilians, are dying.

Experts such as Ahmed Rashid are blaming ineptitude Hamid Karzai in Kabul, hypocrite General Musharrad in Islamabad and short-minded neo-cons in Washington for the current Taliban crisis.

Indeed it is easy to blame anyone for anything he/she might have had done in regards to post-Taliban Afghanistan. Even Mr. Rashid can be blamed for keeping his valuable analysis so late only to make another bestseller Decent into Chaos. But what benefits will a blame game offer?

The rulers of Kabul (here I imply the international and national military, diplomatic and aid community based in Kabul) have clearly got the BBC’s and the New York Times’ warnings seriously as they have already turned the capital into a heavily fortified trench with major roads and footpaths barricaded by gigantic blast-resistant walls and rude gauds. Even a busy man like Barrack Obama knows that President Karzai and his international backers are trapped in bunkers in Kabul.

Mr. Leithead and Ms. Gall are fine reporters and have produced excellent journalistic pieces out of their brief visits outside Kabul.

Let me add to both reports an Afghan perspective: the Taliban are not going to run over Kabul in the near future.

Instead the insurgents want to create and expand an atmosphere of terror and fright in order to show off their might.

The Taliban were in control of Kabul in September 2001 when Mr. Karzai was staying in Quetta, Pakistan – ironically a place where Mullah Omar has reportedly resided since 2002 – but left the capital in October because they could not stand up and resist against only a few dozens of US forces. They are not willing and in fact cannot fight thousands of US forces that are currently based inside and outside the Afghan capital.

In late 2001 there was a firm determination in the West that the Taliban should be smashed and ousted from power. The desire was accomplished quickly. In 2008 however there is little interest among NATO member nations to protect an increasingly unpopular US stooge in Kabul.

The Taliban will peep into Kabul regularly only to remind Afghans that sooner or later they will return, and until then there is a message for them: Don’t support Karzai and internationals!

[ENDS]