KABUL: Foreign troops will be driven out of Afghanistan by force if the US fails to meet a May 1 deadline to withdraw its remaining soldiers, the Taliban said on Friday. This follows US President Joe Biden’s announcement that he could extend the American military presence in the country.
Foreign troops led by the US have been stationed in Afghanistan since the ousting of the Taliban from power in late 2001. Under a deal signed by the US and Taliban in Qatar in February 2020, the US military should completely leave Afghanistan by May. The US has already withdrawn several thousands of its soldiers, but some of its 2,500 troops still remain on Afghan soil.
Biden admitted on Thursday that the remaining troops could stay in Afghanistan for “tactical reasons” after the deadline. He added, however, that he did not intend to keep the troops in Afghanistan past next year.
“If anyone violates the Doha agreement and adopts the path of war, Afghans have a long history of giving sacrifices for the freedom of their country and can drive out by force the foreign troops,” Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told media.
“No one should try the will of Afghans in this regard and all foreign troops must leave Afghanistan on the set time as Afghans have the right to decide about their country. Whoever wants to extend the 20 years of war will suffer more financial and human losses,” he said, adding that the Doha agreement signed by the group with the previous US administration of Donald Trump was “the logical, rational and good way for ending the war and tragedy.”
Biden’s announcement that it may be hard for the US to meet the May 1 deadline comes ahead of an American-sponsored conference on the Afghan peace process in Turkey where, in the coming weeks, international players, the Taliban and the Afghan government, are expected to negotiate the formation of an interim administration in Afghanistan that would involve Taliban representatives an idea opposed by President Ashraf Ghani whose second term in office started last year.
Ghani, whose government was sidelined from the US-Taliban talks in Doha last year, has been demanding that foreign troops remain in Afghanistan for a few more years and that the Biden administration review the US deal with the Taliban.
In response to Biden’s Thursday announcement, Ghani’s spokesman, Dawa Khan Menapal, said that foreign troops needed to stay longer as the Taliban had not fulfilled their obligations under the Doha agreement to reduce violence in the country and cut ties with foreign militants, including Al-Qaeda.
Following the Doha accord, the Taliban have halted attacks on foreign troops but at the same time intensified their attacks on Afghan security forces. “We, from the start, opposed the hasty withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan. We are facing a joint threat and it needs a joint campaign,” Menapal told media.
While Biden said that State Secretary Antony Blinken was meeting NATO allies to decide how to proceed with the withdrawal in a “safe and orderly way,” concerns are rising that missing the May deadline may “put the Taliban in a dilemma and may prompt some of the field commanders to resume attacks on foreign troops,” Kabul-based political analyst and former journalist, Taj Mohammad said.–Agencies
