Trump withdrawal plan could tip Afghanistan towards more violence

Donald Trump’s plan for a swift withdrawal of over half the US troops in Afghanistan comes at a dangerous time for a country officially in peace talks, but grappling with escalating bloodshed and shrinking financial support from foreign donors.

Attacks are up by 50% since negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban began in September, a recent US government report found, above average levels for this time of year.

The top US general on the ground, Austin Scott Miller, has warned that insurgent assaults are “not consistent” with the withdrawal agreement the US and the Taliban signed in February and “undermine the ongoing Afghan peace talks”.

The violence has also reportedly demoralised Afghan forces, who have been ordered to stay on the defensive as part of the peace process. Frequent Afghan government calls for a Taliban ceasefire or reduction of violence as a sign of insurgent goodwill during the talks have gone unheeded.

A string of targeted city assassinations has picked off talented reporters, human rights activists and moderate religious leaders. A female delegate to the peace talks was also targeted over the summer, although she survived the car bombing with minor injuries.

Many of these killings have gone unclaimed, but together the murders have sent a chilling message about the risks of fighting for rights like press freedom and women’s education, carved out by a generation of Afghans since the Taliban were toppled in late 2001.

Critics of the talks have long raised fears that the Taliban are more interested in buying time until American forces leave than in trying to reach a political settlement.

They fear that an overly hasty withdrawal of American troops, who currently provide air cover and other military aid for Afghan forces, and logistical support for Nato allies with troops on the ground, could tip the country towards greater violence.

“The US government is fully entitled to draw down as it wishes (even if it goes back on its commitment to the Afghans). However, if you are going to do it, do it responsibly!” Saad Mohseni, director of the Moby Group, Afghanistan’s largest private media company, said on Twitter. “Burning down the house on your way out is not what we expected from an ally.”

History offers a grim precedent from 30 years ago, when Russian troops withdrew from the country in 1989, leaving the government they had backed to fight alone against US-supported insurgents.

Although the previous decade had seen bitter fighting and atrocities by both sides, the years of civil war that followed unleashed new levels of death and physical destruction on the country, and culminated in the Taliban’s rise to power.