MONITORING (SW) – At least three senior Taliban figures have confirmed to the NBC News the group has called fighters for front-line duty amid growing concerns in their ranks that the Biden administration will not withdraw foreign troops by an agreed May deadline.
A Taliban commander in Helmand province said there were “multiple issues” that the movement’s leadership needed to address, including a “deadlock” in the peace talks with the Afghan government and doubts about the future raised by the new administration in Washington.
Like other insurgents cited in this article, the commander spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. The comments come amid growing warnings about escalating violence from local and foreign officials and experts, with President Joe Biden — who assumed office just months before a deadline to withdraw all foreign troops — weighing what to do next in America’s longest war.
A bipartisan report released Wednesday warned that withdrawing troops irresponsibly would likely lead to a “new civil war” in Afghanistan and would allow terrorist groups to re-emerge empowered.
According to the report, a Taliban political leader in Doha, Qatar, said the group’s plan was to try and capture strategically important provinces in case talks with the Afghan government failed, and Biden kept troops in the country beyond May — the withdrawal date agreed to by the Taliban and the Trump administration.
He said commanders of “important” districts had been recalled to their positions.
The militants have misled the media in the past and it remains unclear to what extent the Taliban are willing to act on their rhetoric, but the threat of violence is also echoed in a recent public statement, the report added.
The Biden team has said it’s reviewing the situation in Afghanistan and has indicated that it would be prepared to delay troop withdrawal if necessary. There are currently around 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the lowest level since 2001, and approximately 7,500 non-American NATO-led forces.
Around 2,300 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan since 2001. Between October 2001 and October 2018, some 58,000 Afghan military and police were killed in the violence, according to a study by Brown University.
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