KABUL, Afghanistan — A feminine highschool pupil in Kabul, Afghanistan’s war-scarred capital, is fearful that she received’t be allowed to graduate. A pomegranate farmer in Kandahar wonders if his orchards will ever be away from Taliban land mines. A authorities soldier in Ghazni fears he won’t ever cease preventing.
Three Afghans from disparate walks of life, now every asking the identical query: What will turn out to be of me when the Americans go away?
President Biden on Tuesday vowed to withdraw all American troops by Sept. 11, practically 20 years after the primary Americans arrived to drive out Al Qaeda following the 2001 terrorist assaults. The American withdrawal ends the longest struggle in United States historical past, however it is usually possible to be the beginning of one other troublesome chapter for Afghanistan’s folks.
“I am so worried about my future. It seems so murky. If the Taliban take over, I lose my identity,” mentioned Wahida Sadeqi, 17, an eleventh grader at Pardis High School in Kabul. “It is about my existence. It is not about their withdrawal. I was born in 2004 and I have no idea what the Taliban did to women, but I know women were banned from everything.”
Uncertainty hangs over nearly each aspect of life in Afghanistan. It is unclear what the long run holds and if the preventing will ever cease. For 20 years, American leaders have pledged peace, prosperity, democracy, the top of terrorism and rights for ladies. Few of these guarantees have materialized in huge areas of Afghanistan, however now even within the cities the place actual progress occurred, there may be worry that all the things can be misplaced when the Americans go away.
The Taliban, the extremist group that after managed a lot of the nation and continues to combat the federal government, insist that the elected president step down. Militias are rising in prominence and energy, and there may be speak of civil struggle after the U.S. withdrawal.
Afghans watched with cautious optimism when Mr. Biden assumed workplace in January. Many had hoped he would reverse the Trump administration’s rushed pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops by May after brokering a shaky peace take care of the Taliban final yr.
Afghan leaders had been satisfied that the brand new American president can be a greater ally, who wouldn’t instantly withdraw the troops which have helped hold the Taliban at bay and out of main cities.
Since the Afghan authorities and the Taliban started peace talks in Qatar late final yr, preventing between them has surged, together with civilian casualties. On Wednesday, the United Nations’ mission in Afghanistan reported that within the first three months of the yr there have been 573 civilians killed and 1,210 wounded, a 29 p.c enhance over the identical interval in 2020. More than 40,000 civilians have been killed because the begin of the struggle.
Over 20 years, the American mission developed from searching terrorists to serving to the federal government construct the establishments of a functioning authorities, dismantle the Taliban and empower girls. But the U.S. and Afghan militaries had been by no means ready to successfully destroy the Taliban, permitting the insurgents to stage a comeback.
The Taliban by no means acknowledged Afghanistan’s democratic authorities. And they seem nearer than ever to attaining the aim of their insurgency: to return to energy and set up a authorities primarily based on their extremist view of Islam.
Women can be most in danger beneath Taliban rule. When the group managed Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, it banned girls from taking most jobs or receiving educations and virtually made them prisoners in their very own houses.
“It is too early to comment on the subject. We need to know much more,” mentioned Fatima Gailani, an Afghan authorities negotiator who’s concerned within the persevering with peace talks with the Taliban. “One thing is certain: It is about time that we learn how to rely on ourselves. Women of Afghanistan are totally different now. They are a force in our country; no one can deny them their rights or status.”
Afghanistan’s shaky democracy — propped up by billions of American {dollars} — has given method to an informed city class that features girls like Ms. Gailani. Many of them had been born in Afghanistan within the Nineteen Nineties and got here of age in the course of the U.S. occupation of the nation. Now these girls are journalists, a part of civil society and members of presidency.
In the countryside, in contrast, preventing, poverty and oppression stay common elements of life. Despite the challenges, residents discovered some consolation in figuring out that Afghan forces, backed by the American army, had been maintaining the peace a minimum of in some areas.
Haji Abdul Samad, 52, a pomegranate farmer from the Arghandab district of Kandahar Province, has been displaced from his dwelling for 2 months due to the heavy preventing there.
“I am too tired of my life. We are now in a position to beg,” Mr. Samad mentioned. “The Americans are responsible for the troubles, hardships that we are going through. Now they are going to leave with their troops, with no peace, no progress. They just want to leave their war behind.”
Fears concerning the future are as palpable within the presidential palace in Kabul as they’re in far-flung corners of the nation. And folks throughout Afghanistan are confused about who will quickly be in cost.
The Taliban have repeatedly referred to as for President Ashraf Ghani to step down to make method for an interim authorities, or almost certainly, their very own. Mr. Ghani has refused, as a substitute pushing for elections but additionally opening the door to extra preventing and a possible civil struggle. The peace talks in Qatar have faltered and the Taliban have all however backed out of proposed talks in Turkey.
“Ghani will be increasingly isolated. Power brokers see every one of his moves as designed to keep himself and his deputies at the helm,” mentioned Torek Farhadi, an adviser to former President Hamid Karzai. “Reality is, free and fair elections are not possible in the country amid war. In fact, it could fuel more violence.”
As American troops put together to go away and fractures kind within the Afghan authorities, militias managed by highly effective native warlords are as soon as extra rising to prominence and attacking authorities forces.
The American withdrawal will undoubtedly be an enormous blow to morale for the Afghan safety forces, unfold throughout the nation at tons of of checkpoints, inside bases and alongside violent entrance traces. For years, the U.S. presence has meant that American air energy, if wanted, was close by. But because the Trump administration’s take care of the Taliban, these airstrikes have turn out to be a lot much less frequent, occurring solely in probably the most dire of conditions.
Without American army assist, Afghan authorities troops are up towards a Taliban enemy who’s ceaselessly extra skilled and higher outfitted than the typical foot soldier.
The historical past of Afghanistan has been one in all overseas invasion and withdrawal: the British within the nineteenth century and the Soviets within the twentieth. After every invasion, the nation underwent a interval of infighting and civil struggle.
“It is not the right time to withdraw their troops,” mentioned Major Saifuddin Azizi, a commando commander within the southeastern province of Ghazni, the place preventing has been particularly brutal in current days. “It is unreasonable, hasty and a betrayal to us. It pushes Afghanistan into another civil war. Afghanistan’s destiny will look like it did two decades ago.”
Reporting was contributed by Fahim Abed, Najim Rahim and Fatima Faizi from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar.
source https://infomagzine.com/afghans-wonder-what-about-me-as-us-troops-prepare-to-withdraw/
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