The Taliban warned the US on Friday that there would be a “reaction” if President Biden failed to withdraw from Afghanistan by the May 1st deadline set by the US-Taliban peace deal signed in Doha last year. The comments were made from Moscow, where the warring sides met to discuss the peace process.
“They should go,” said Suhail Shaheen, a member of the Taliban’s negotiation team. He warned if the US stayed beyond May 1st, it would be a violation of the Doha agreement. “After that, it will be a kind of violation of the agreement. That violation would not be from our side. . . Their violation will have a reaction,” Shaheen said.
Shaheen also called for “expedited” peace negotiations. “It is important that the negotiations should be expedited because it will help us to achieve a permanent ceasefire and countrywide peace and this is our goal,” He said. “As we talked with Afghan politicians, they also insisted that the process should be expedited.”
Shaheen’s comments come after a report from NBC News said President Biden is considering staying in Afghanistan in November. Sources told NBC that Biden was pushing back against the Pentagon’s efforts to stay in Afghanistan but was convinced to consider extending the withdrawal deadline to November, although no decisions have yet been made.
Any deadline extension would have to be agreed with the Taliban, or the group would again target US troops, something Shaheen’s warning makes clear. February 8th marked the first full year that no US troops died in combat in Afghanistan since the war began.
While the Taliban held up its commitment not to attack the US troops, US airstrikes still occasionally target the group. A US military spokesman announced on Wednesday that the US bombed Taliban targets this week.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special envoy for the Afghan peace process, attended Afghanistan talks in Moscow on Thursday. Russia has been hosting Afghanistan summits for years now, but the US is usually not involved. The US, Russia, China, and Pakistan released a joint statement calling for a political settlement.
Here is a great chance for Biden to get a self scheduled bath in American military men’s blood as pretest to further extend American occupation in a war that never should have been started. Just an oil wet dream of Caspean hydrocarbon riches by corrupt American corporations. Just a further indictment of corporations buying elected leaders.
Yes, how many lives will be lost for political reasons. And IMO you are absolutely correct in the “pretest” of blood-letting sacrifice to satisfy the Washington gods, Aztec style. . . .It must be the right thing to do because people have given their lives for it, the story goes. . .Well phooey on that.
The US “law of unintended consequences”
Force the Shah of Iran to step down, put a temporary government of “friendly mullahs” in charge, then when it all settles down, put the Shah’s son on the Peacock throne – how did that work out?
Support Iraq in their war against Iran – photos of a smiling Don Rumsfeld with Saddam Hussein. Invade and trash Iraq years later, disband the Iraqi army without pay, see the forming of Islamic State – how did that work out?
Back the Mujahedeen against Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Mujahedeen becomes Taliban, headed by Osama Bin Laden – how did that work out?
Libya – stable country headed by a strong leader. US, UK, France attack Libya, Ghaddafi killed, country plunged into chaos, US diplomats killed – how did that work out?
Does the US have the most stupid politicians in the World, or simply the most evil?
This is like Iran and the JCPOA. We’ll ignore the agreement first(already has happened by bombings)and when the Taliban responds by ignoring the agreement, we will then demand full compliance by them before we will come back to the agreement AND that we want to “strengthen” the deal we already had agreed upon. A pattern maybe?
re: The US, Russia, China, and Pakistan released a joint statement calling for a political settlement
Easy for them to say. The Taliban whose government was a victim of the US invasion and suffered twenty years of war from the US/NATO and its puppet government has a different opinion: There is no substitute for victory.
re: reaction
The US arming Afghanis with anti-air missiles was a major incentive for the Russians to leave Afghanistan years ago. There have been no similar attacks on US/NATO aircraft to my knowledge. But today we have a report of an Afghan army helicopter destroyed by an anti-aircraft missile, complete with drone? video here.
There have been plenty of attacks on aircraft using missiles etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_accidents_and_incidents_in_the_war_in_Afghanistan
Not plenty. They have been minor in scale and (obviously) ineffective. Need to separate out the crashes and unsubstantiated Taliban claims from the wiki list.
We bombed them. Isn’t that a violation??
Yes.
US-TALIBAN AGREEMENT
PART ONE
F. The United States and its allies will refrain from the threat or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Afghanistan or intervening in its domestic affairs. . .here
After ten years, it’s the same-old, same-old.
>The US position, 2021:
Austin declined to say whether the Taliban are meeting the conditions of the February 2020 agreement negotiated by the previous administration, but stressed that he wants to see “a responsible end to the conflict. . ..There is always going to be concerns about things one way or the other, but I think there is a lot of energy focused on doing what’s necessary to bring about a responsible end, a negotiated settlement to the war,” he said. . .here
>The Afghan situation from a RAND report, 2011:
The American objective in these negotiations should be a stable and peaceful Afghanistan that neither hosts nor collaborates with international terrorists. . .We thus recommend that the United States seek the appointment of a United Nations–endorsed facilitator to promote agreement among all the necessary parties to an Afghan peace process regarding a venue, participation, and the agenda for talks. . . We recommend that only the Afghan parties take formal part in the core negotiations over their country’s future but that all of the major external stakeholders, including India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and the United States, conduct parallel, less formal discussions with a view to exercising convergent influence on the Afghan parties.This will not be easy,. . .here