Kabul | President Joe Biden faces “serious dilemmas” in Afghanistan, where the planned date for a full US troop withdrawal is approaching as the Taliban does not appear to be ready to give up on violence, a senior US official said.
The US administration has ordered a review of the agreement signed with the Taliban in February 2020 in Doha, which provides for the total withdrawal of US forces by May 1, in exchange for security guarantees from the insurgents and their commitment to negotiate a peace agreement with the Afghan government.
These peace talks, which opened in Doha in September, are progressing slowly and in Afghanistan not a day goes by without a bomb explosion, attacks on government forces or a targeted assassination attempt against a prominent figure in the United Nations. civil society.
“The level of violence remains very, very high (…), which is shocking and deeply disappointing,” a senior US State Department official told AFP this week in Kabul, on condition of anonymity .
“This undeniably affects the atmosphere for any settlement agreement for the Afghan conflict,” he added.
The Taliban deny any responsibility for the targeted attacks and the Islamic State organization has claimed most of them. Washington, however, has no doubts as to who really takes responsibility.
“From our point of view, the Taliban are responsible for the vast majority of targeted assassinations,” said the official, who believes that they have created an “ecosystem of violence”.
“This is clearly intended to demoralize citizens (…) to add to people’s doubts about their government and to the idea that a victory (of the Taliban) is inevitable,” he said.
In his view, the Biden administration, which remains determined to implement the Doha agreement, now faces “serious dilemmas.”
After the signing of this agreement, the insurgents stopped attacking American forces, which have not lost any soldiers in combat for a year. But if Washington decides to keep troops on the ground after the May deadline, they will surely be targeted again.
And if the United States withdraws entirely, it will leave the fragile Afghan government at the mercy of an adversary willing to do anything to come to power, which could lead to new massacres that will be difficult for the international community to ignore.