Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid announced on Monday that they are rejecting calls by Afghan elders to extend a previously expired ceasefire. Mujahid said the push for another pause amounted to a call to surrender.
The three-day ceasefire was an unprecedented successful pause in the Afghan War, covering the holiday of Eid al-Fitr. There was high hope that this would lead to more ceasefires, and the Afghan government offered to extend it as long as another full year.
Mujahid expressed annoyance that all of the onus for a truce was being put on the Taliban, and that the elders weren’t calling for the withdrawal of foreign troops, but just expecting the Taliban to accept a government imposed under foreign occupation.
Elders who met recently issued a statement saying they are “fed up with operations by government forces in our areas that trigger fighting for days.” Afghanistan has a great deal of war exhaustion, 17 years in, and there is growing pressure on everyone, Taliban included, to do something to move toward an end. Since the Taliban is openly rejecting the ceasefire, they’ll likely continue to face most of the calls to shift their tactics.
“… Taliban spokesman says talk amounts to call to surrender…”
Now, the Taliban figure that out?
The Taliban is absolutely right about this: “shifting their tactics” to abandoning the war they are clearly winning, in favor of nonviolent participation in a government imposed by a US military invasion and occupation, would be surrendering to US rule.
The central point of their struggle is nationalism, that Afghanistan should rule itself. Various world powers have gone to Afghanistan to die trying to dominate their people. The Taliban will return to power as soon as the US gets tired of killing their people. It can take a really long time for Americans to get tired of killing, bleeding and spending like there is no tomorrow, but it does happen eventually.