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Khalilzad reflects on fall of Kabul govt and military

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(Last Updated On: September 30, 2021)

US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said this week that many questions remain unanswered on why former president Ashraf Ghani fled the country unexpectedly and why the Afghan military forces dissolved within just a few hours.

He also stated that in his opinion, the leadership of the former government made a “grand miscalculation” – that the US would never withdraw its troops.

In an interview with Foreign Policy on Tuesday, Khalilzad said: “Why did President Ghani do what he did? Why did the forces behave the way they did? The question is, you know, we invested so much in this force. The numbers were impressive on paper, the capabilities were there, internal weapons, air power – especially special forces of the military, which we thought was quite significant and capable and dedicated, some of them, that perform extremely courageously as individuals, as units.

“There were forces at work for our various other agencies that were all there. What happened?,” he asks.

He said while the US did not have information yet on the issue it does seem the security forces were left fighting for a government they didn’t want to defend.

“We haven’t done enough work to say what definitively happened in terms of that. But that’s what it looks like,” he said.

“And there have been some quick assessments of why, even as districts were falling, people saying that many commanders were changed. There are others who say, you know, people didn’t think this thing was worth fighting for.

“Could it be the standing of the government changed with the soldiers because of corruption and perceptions of corruption? I don’t know; we don’t know. This will take a lot more time,” he said.

Khalilzad also said many Afghans complain that the US pushed Ghani too hard, while others have said Ghani should have been pushed harder on the negotiations.

He said he thinks Ghani may have been “ill advised” but that no one, except some individuals, expected the military and government to collapse so quickly.

“People thought it might take years if it happens. Then as these districts started to fall, some people shrank the time that it might take.

“But Ghani, whenever I saw him and when the secretary (of state Antony Blinken) spoke to him the night before all of this happened, he was of the view that even after our departure (troops withdrawal), sometimes he would say it was a blessing.”

Khalilzad said he had many conversations with Ghani in the lead up to the collapse of the former government, but the former president was “of the view that the Talibs (IEA members) would not be able to win militarily.

“He believed that very, very passionately and strongly until, I think, they (the IEA) were surrounding Kabul.”

He said in reference to the Doha talks between the US and the IEA, which led to the Doha deal in February last year, that he “respects those who say we shouldn’t have negotiated with the Talibs (IEA) without the government being there.”

He said commentators “don’t deal with the underlying forces or balance that caused us to do that which was that we were losing ground”.

“Since after (former U.S. President Barack Obama’s) surge, each year we were losing ground to the Talibs (IEA), meaning Talibs (IEA) were taking more territory. So unless we agreed to another surge, time was not on our side.”

“I think that the grand miscalculation of the Afghan leadership was this: that we were not going to leave.”

He said putting a condition in place with the IEA that troops would be withdrawn only once an agreement was in place between the IEA and the former government, “could have been an option”.

“But there was a lot of pessimism here, whether the Afghans could ever come to an agreement with each other. And therefore, if you made it a tight condition; You’d never leave; in a sense, you’re saying you’re going to stay”

Khalilzad stated that in his opinion Ghani was reluctant to forge an agreement with the IEA as a new government would mean he might lose power.

“This new government idea meant that perhaps he wouldn’t have led the government. It took us a long time to get him to even appoint an inclusive delegation to go to Doha.

Khalilzad also said however that the IEA played a key role in ending ISIS-K’s (Daesh) foothold in Afghanistan.

“I think on ISIS, they played a vital role in ending the territory of ISIS in Afghanistan. We will watch that closely. We are, this is obviously of vital importance, we hold them to their commitments on terrorism, including al Qaeda.

Khalilzad said that the US has made some achievements in Afghanistan over the past 20 years.

“People live longer, are more educated, wealthier. The physical face of Afghanistan, of Kabul, changed fundamentally. On the building of a vision – that of a democratic, self-sufficient, secure Afghanistan – I think we fell short together. And you have to learn from what happened.

“Could we have done things differently? Was there a problem of ends and means that our ambitions were too large compared to the strategy and resources?

“How we built the [armed] forces? Could it have been done differently to make it more resilient and more self-reliant and motivated to fight? Should we have pushed harder for a political settlement earlier? Yes, I reflect on those, and I will reflect on them for some time to come,” he said.

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ISIS-K leader reportedly living in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Sanaullah Ghaffari, also known as Shahab al-Muhajar, is reportedly the ISIS-Khorasan (Daesh) branch leader and is holed up in Pakistan, Reuters reports.

The 29-year-old took over as leader in 2020 and under his leadership the group has carried out extreme attacks as a means of recruiting, Reuters reported.

Reuters noted that little was known about Ghafari before the deadly 2021 ISIS attack on Kabul Airport, which killed 170 Afghan civilians and 13 American soldiers.

But after Friday’s deadly attack in a concert hall in Moscow, which left 139 people dead, Ghaffari’s group has come under intense scrutiny.

Reuters reports that Ghaffari is said to have been involved in several attacks in Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

Pakistani officials said months ago that Ghaffari had been killed in Kunar province in Afghanistan in June last year, but Reuters has reported that he did not die and instead fled to Pakistan and lives in the border province of Baluchistan.

Abdul Matin Qani, the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan, says that Daesh has been suppressed in Afghanistan for more than two years and has lost its operational capacity.

The last attack carried out by Daesh in Afghanistan was the attack on the Kabul Bank office in Kandahar last week which left three dead and 12 wounded.

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IPL: Sunrisers thump MI in record breaking match

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

It was raining records at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Wednesday with the hosts Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) clinching a 31-run victory over Mumbai Indians (MI) in Match 8 of the Tata Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024.

Sunrisers’ batting rewrote the record books on a batting belter after the posted 277 for three.

SRH now have the highest team score in the history of the IPL – beating Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) 263 for five from the 2013 season.

In reply, MI made a spirited effort, and at one stage, were contenders to do the near impossible. In the slog overs, the enormity of the target proved a bit too much, and SRH clinched victory, but not without numerous nervous moments.

To put into perspective the carnage we witnessed – Heinrich Klaasen’s 23-ball half-century was the slowest fifty of the SRH innings.

Travis Head, playing his first match for SRH, raced to the milestone in 18 balls. Abhishek Sharma got there even faster – in 16 balls – to record the quickest fifty by an SRH batter in IPL history.

While Sunrisers notched up the highest total in the 16-year history of the IPL, just as incredibly, Mumbai Indians almost paid them back with the same coin, their batters coming out with a nothing-to-lose attitude.

The sixes kept rolling off the Mumbai bats too, helping them keep up with the asking rate for most of the chase, eventually however, they ran out of steam and finished on 246 for 5, the highest IPL total in a losing cause.

As ESPNcricinfo reported, never were more runs scored in a men’s T20 match (523). Never were most sixes hit in a men’s T20 (38). At the end of the close to four-hour six-fest, only two bowlers returned with an economy rate of under ten an over.

Thursday, March 28 : Match 9

Thursday’s match at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur sees Rajasthan Royals go up against Delhi Capitals.

Fans in Afghanistan can tune in to Ariana Television to watch the match live from 6.30pm. Alternatively the match can be screened live on arianatelevision.com

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Magnitude 5.2 quake jolts Afghanistan

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

An earthquake measuring a magnitude of 5.2 on the Richter Scale jolted Afghanistan on Thursday afternoon, the National Center for Seismology reported.

The quake was at a depth of 70km and epicentered in the mountainous north-eastern area of Ashkāsham.

The jolt was felt across the region including in Kabul, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan

There were no immediate reports of any casualties.

In October last year, over 2,000 people were killed when four 6.3-magnitude earthquakes struck in Herat province.

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