The Taliban say the Afghan president must go to reach a peace deal

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Islamabad (AFP) – The Taliban say they do not want a monopoly on power, but insist there will be no peace in Afghanistan until a new government is negotiated in Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani is removed.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Taliban spokesman Sohail Shaheen, who is also a member of the group’s negotiating team, clarified the insurgents’ position on what should come next in a country on the edge.

The Taliban have rapidly seized territory in recent weeks, capturing strategic border crossings and threatening a number of provincial capitals, with the last US and NATO soldiers leaving Afghanistan. This week, a senior US military officer, General Mark Milley, said at a Pentagon briefing that the Taliban had “strategic momentum”, and did not rule out complete Taliban control. But he said it was not inevitable. “I don’t think the end game has been written yet,” he said.

Memories of the Taliban last in power nearly 20 years ago, when they imposed a strict form of Islam that deprived girls of education and prevented women from working, sparked fears among many that they would return. Afghans who can afford it apply by the thousands for visas to leave Afghanistan, fearing a violent descent into chaos. US and NATO withdrawals are more than 95% complete and due to be completed by August 31.

Shaheen said the Taliban will lay down their arms when a negotiating government acceptable to all parties to the conflict is formed in Kabul and Ghani’s government is gone.

“I want to make it clear that we do not believe in a monopoly of power because any government (sought) to monopolize power in Afghanistan in the past, they have not been successful governments,” Shaheen said, apparently including the five-year Taliban government. Judgment in this evaluation. “So we don’t want to repeat the same formula.”

But he was also not complacent about Ghani’s continuation, calling him a war promoter and accusing him of using his speech on Tuesday on the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha to vow an attack on the Taliban. Shaheen rejected Ghani’s right to rule, and revived the widespread allegations of fraud that surrounded Ghani’s victory in the 2019 elections. After that vote, both Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah declared themselves president. After a compromise agreement, Abdullah is now No. 2 in the government and heads the Reconciliation Council.

Ghani has often said he will stay in office until new elections can determine the next government. His critics – including those outside the Taliban – accuse him of merely seeking to retain power, causing divisions among government supporters.

Last weekend, Abdullah led a high-level delegation to the Qatari capital, Doha, for talks with Taliban leaders. It ended with promises of more talks, as well as a greater interest in protecting civilians and infrastructure.

Shaheen described the talks as a good start. But he said the government’s repeated demands for a ceasefire while Ghani remained in power amounted to a demand for the Taliban’s surrender.

“They don’t want reconciliation,” he said, “but they want to surrender.”

Before any ceasefire, he said, there must be agreement on a new government “acceptable to us and other Afghans”. Then “there will be no war”.

Under this new government, Shaheen said, women will be allowed to work, go to school and participate in politics, but they will have to wear a headscarf or headscarf. He said that women will not be required to have a male relative with them to leave their home, and that Taliban leaders in the newly occupied areas have orders that universities, schools, and markets operate as before, including with women and girls participating.

However, there were frequent reports from districts captured from the Taliban imposing strict restrictions on women, even setting schools on fire. A gruesome video has emerged that appears to show the Taliban killing captured commandos in northern Afghanistan

Shaheen said that some Taliban leaders ignored commands of the leadership against the repressive and hard-line behavior, and that many of them were brought before a Taliban military court and punished, though he gave details. The video was allegedly fake, a separate video.

Shaheen said there were no plans to launch a military attack on Kabul and that the Taliban had so far “reluctant” to seize the provincial capitals. But he warned that they could, given the weapons and equipment they acquired in the newly captured areas. He claimed that the majority of the Taliban’s successes on the battlefield came through negotiations, not combat.

“Those neighborhoods that fell on us and the military forces that joined us … were through the mediation of the people, through talks,” he said. “They (didn’t fall) through the fighting… It was hard for us to take 194 districts in just eight weeks.”

Milley said the Taliban control about half of Afghanistan’s 419 provincial centers, and although they have not yet been able to control any of the 34 provincial capitals, they are pressing on half of them. The Pentagon’s press secretary, John Kirby, said Thursday that the United States has in recent days carried out airstrikes to support besieged Afghan government forces in the southern city of Kandahar, around which the Taliban are crowded.

The rapid collapse of provinces and the seemingly frustrated response by Afghan government forces prompted US-allied warlords to revive militias with a violent history. For many Afghans tired of more than four decades of war, this raises fears of a repeat of the brutal civil war of the early 1990s in which warlords themselves fought for power.

“You know, nobody wants a civil war, including me,” Shaheen said.

Shaheen also repeated Taliban promises to reassure Afghans who fear the group.

Washington has promised to move thousands of American military interpreters. Shaheen said they had nothing to fear from the Taliban and denied their threat. But he added that if some wanted asylum in the West because the Afghan economy is so poor, “it’s up to them.”

He also denied that the Taliban had threatened journalists and Afghanistan’s fledgling civil society, which has been targeted with dozens of deaths over the past year. The Islamic State has blamed some, but the Afghan government blamed the Taliban for most of the killings, while the Taliban, in turn, accused the Afghan government of carrying out the killings to discredit them. The government rarely made arrests in connection with the killings or made public the results of its investigations.

Shaheen said journalists, including those working in Western media, had nothing to fear from a government that included the Taliban.

We have not issued letters to (threatened) journalists, especially those who work in foreign media. They can continue their work even in the future.

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