The British Chief of Army in Afghanistan warns that Taliban may retake key areas won as result of heavy casualties. Key Afghan towns such as Musa Qala, where British troops suffered heavy casualties during the early phase of military operations in Helmand province, could be retaken by the Taliban as insurgents seek to regain lost territory, General Sir Peter Wall said. In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, he warned that British forces face a tough year as they complete the withdrawal of the remaining 6,000 troops before combat operations draw to a close at the end of 2014. “The Taliban will be contesting the places we’ve left ands there are these iconic places like Musa Qala which we fought over and suffered quite significantly,” said Sir Peter after visiting British forces in Afghanistan over Christmas. “It would be quite bad news if the Taliban were to get back into a place like that.”
Like Prime Minister David Cameron, he expressed that while the military had been involved in a “tough campaign”, British forces had achieved their primary objective of displacing and disrupting the al-Qaeda network so that it could no longer plot attacks against the West from safe havens in Afghanistan.
On the other hand, Washington Post released a report, citing US-Intelligence assessment, depicting a very bleak picture from the future. It says that even if the international community continues supporting the country, the progress will erode by 2017. It means that if the President Karzai finally come short of demands that US officials are not willing to commit, the prospective does not look good.
On the other hand, the paper, citing officials who have seen the intelligence report, said that Afghanistan will likely plunge into chaos if the security agreement is not signed.
"In the absence of a continuing presence and continuing financial support," the intelligence assessment suggests “the situation would deteriorate very rapidly," a US official familiar with the report told the Post, speaking on condition of anonymity. However one official told the Post that the assessment was too pessimistic, and that there were too many variables to accurately predict Afghanistan's future. Some officials also believe that Afghanistan's security forces are better prepared than the report states. "I think what we're going to see is a recalibration of political power, territory and that kind of thing. It's not going to be an inevitable rise of the Taliban," a US official who thought the report was too negative told the Post.
Many Afghan officials and newspapers reacted to the news. Due to over-dominant foreign suspicion and xenophobia, all branded the leak of such assessments into media part of the bigger US propaganda. Many branded as baseless, reflecting no ground reality. Officials using the very long-lasting and deep rooted anti-foreign sentiments of people and propaganda theory, threw the finding of the assessments into trash, saying it was designed to mount pressure on Mr. President to put away his demands and sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA).
Anyhow, as Peter Wall has observed, Afghan security forces have challenging days ahead. Insurgents will mount pressure on government and commence far serious attacks in the restive provinces to retake what they lost during recent years as result of US-military surge and decision of Afghan government to maintain the area under their control. Earlier, foreign security forces would march to areas under the control of Taliban than pullout of the area. So, after sometime, Taliban could easily return and retake the lost areas. After Washington decision to increase security forces in 2009 to deal detrimental blow to Taliban and al-Qaeda establishments, it was decided that areas from where insurgents were forced out should remain under the control of Afghan security forces. Hence, large areas which were under the control of Taliban were captured and handed over to Afghan security forces to maintain the control. As the deadline for complete foreign military withdrawal is close, Taliban will try to regroup and mount attacks on Afghan security forces to retake key areas.
The statement of Peter Wall and the assessment of US intelligence say one thing: the situation may deteriorate unless managed properly. certainly, it is not just British head’s statements and US intelligence’s assessment that talk about the possible rise of insurgent groups, rather the ground realites reflect the same thing. Taliban and other armed groups have waited years and indirectly warned those who cooperate with government that international community will not remain here forever. In the previous Eid festival, Hekmatiyar, the leader of Hezb-e-Islami warned a particular community that that it will pay for being safe under the control of international community.
Insurgents have waited a long time for the moment that foreign security forces withdraw in order to deal blow to Afghan government. During past few years, they carried out spectacular attacks across the country merely to say that US-led foreign military intervention was a failure. They are still strong enough to be a threat to government. Hence, I really do not understand why our officials cover their heads and murmur, “Do not worry, everything is going to be OK!”. For centuries, we did so. It is revealed that nothing was ok at all.
Even if the above statement and assessment are designed to mount pressure on Mr. President, the government should put a glimpse to situation merely for a precaution. If they proved false, we would lose nothing. But what if they contained authenticity? Then of course, it would be too late to take the due steps.