Mereja.Forum

[Abe Abraham]

Taliban control raises fears of chaos spreading outside Afghanistan | | Arab newspaper


Kabul - Afghanistan has entered a new phase in its turbulent history, which began with the fall of the monarchy in 1973, after Taliban forces took control of the capital, Kabul, and the flight of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, and the US administration blamed the security forces and the army for not fighting and standing up to the Taliban's advance, which imposes exceptional concern. On a region that has become a focus of the conflicts of the major powers, the retreating and the rising alike.

The chaos that prevailed in the foreign missions in Kabul showed that the worst nightmares of the Western powers that occupied Afghanistan in two decades had come true, but with a rapid and confusing pace that could have sparked retaliatory bombings, had it not been for the calm and restraint exercised by the Taliban in Kabul in particular.

US embassy staff in Kabul were urgently transferred to the Afghan capital's airport, where thousands of US troops were dispatched to secure the evacuation, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Sunday.

Kamran Bukhari: Chaos will extend beyond the borders of Afghanistan

The Central Asian region, in which China, India and the United States are competing, has turned into the new playing field between these forces since the Taliban movement began making progress on the ground in Afghanistan.

Researcher Kamran Bukhari said, “Regime change is a terribly chaotic process; Weak systems can be brought down, but replacing them is the hard part. It is only a matter of time before the Afghan state collapses and unleashes the chaos that will extend beyond its borders.”

"All Afghanistan's neighbors will be affected to varying degrees, but Pakistan and China will suffer the greatest loss," he added. The targeting of Chabahar port and the Hazara Shiites in Afghanistan could turn Iran into a big loser as well.”

The Taliban's control highlights the future of India's exploitation of the Iranian port of Chabahar, which works to facilitate Indian trade with Afghanistan and Central Asia, and which has been exempt from US sanctions in order to support the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan.

India regards Chabahar as a counterweight to the Chinese-backed Pakistani port of Gwadar, the crown jewel of China's transport, telecommunications and energy-dependent Belt and Road Initiative.

But after negotiations with Iran on reviving the 2015 international nuclear agreement stalled, the United States announced in July with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan plans to create a platform to promote regional trade, trade relations and connectivity, which could weaken Iran but strengthen China through the ports of Gwadar and Karachi.

Despite the economic benefits that may accrue to China at the expense of the United States, this does not obscure the expected damage, which is essentially the country turning into a point for targeting China by the Uyghur fighters of the Turkistan Islamic Party.


The Turkistan Islamic Party occasionally releases videos documenting its presence in Afghanistan, but it has kept a low profile in the country and refrained from attacking Chinese targets in Afghanistan or across the border in Xinjiang, northwest China, where the authorities have been brutally repressing Uighurs.

Therefore, the Taliban's reassurances were not enough to prevent China from repeatedly advising its citizens to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible.

"Currently, the security situation in Afghanistan has further deteriorated... If the Chinese citizens insist on staying in Afghanistan, they will face very severe security risks, and they will bear all the consequences," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.

China's fears of becoming a target for militants are reinforced after the killing of nine Chinese citizens last July after an explosion in a bus carrying workers to a dam construction site in the northern mountains of Pakistan, accusing the Baloch nationalist militants.

The Taliban's takeover is expected to stoke conservative and extremist religious sentiments in Pakistan, which views the Taliban as heroes whose success boosts chances of hard-line religious rule in the world's second-largest Muslim country.

A senior Pakistani official said, “Our jihadists will be encouraged; They will say: If America can be defeated, who is the Pakistani army to stand in our way?

In turn, residents of the Uzbek city of Tarmiz, whose streets date back to the Soviet era, consider the presence of the Taliban a few miles from their city a major concern.

"They were not friendly before and they are unlikely to become so," said Safar Tursunov, 66, adding that "Uzbekistan is a prosperous country and we do not need neighbors of this kind."

In the past twenty years, Tarmiz has maintained good trade relations with neighboring Afghanistan, culminating in the construction of a railway linking this city with Mazar-i-Sharif, which is about 100 kilometers away.

But Uzbekistan had to evacuate railway workers who live on the Afghan side of the border on Sunday.


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[Somaliman]

Mark my words, Taliban will play politics this time round, rather than fear and oppression, changing tactic. They know that the West wants a strongman or group which they can deal with in any country, regardless of their brand or religious beliefs. Taliban has learned that they cannot run a country with funds generated through opium and be regarded as a bunch of terrorist outlaws in the eyes of the West.

They'll be demonstrating a degree of flexibility and making concessions with the West, starting with the US, to keep the hundreds of millions of dollars from the West flowing but this time into their vaults and be granted with a recognition as a legitimate reliable political entity that the West can trust.


Therefore, no one should fear their comeback.