KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – Afghanistan’s interior minister said on Saturday that Afghan security forces can stand firm even if U.S. troops withdraw, defying a U.S. warning that predicts a retreat would produce rapid territorial gains for the Taliban.
Masoud Andarabi’s comments in an interview with The Associated Press on Saturday were the government’s first reaction to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s warning, published in a letter to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani over the weekend. past.
In the letter urging Ghani to step up efforts to make peace with the Taliban, Blinken said, “I am concerned that the security situation will worsen and that the Taliban will be able to make rapid territorial gains” after the withdrawal of the northern army. -American.
Andarabi said Afghanistan’s National Security Forces could maintain territory, but would likely bear heavy losses by trying to maintain remote checkpoints without U.S. air support.
“Afghan security forces are fully capable of defending the capital, cities and territories in which we are present right now,” he said. “We believe this year’s Afghan security forces have shown the Taliban that they will not be able to gain territory.”
While the Taliban have not attacked U.S. or NATO forces as a condition of the deal, Afghan national security forces have faced some blunt attacks.
Interviewed at the heavily fortified Interior Ministry, Andarabi also reiterated his government’s warning against a hasty U.S. withdrawal from the war-ravaged country, saying Taliban ties with al-Qaeda remain intact and that a rapid withdrawal would worsen global anti-terrorist efforts.
He said the Afghan National Security Forces, backed by U.S. assistance, have so far put pressure on terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan, including the local branch of the Islamic State.
A hasty “reckless retreat” could certainly give those terrorists a chance … to threaten the world, “he said from inside the compound, protected by concrete walls, barbed wire and a phalanx of security guards. security.
The warning comes as Washington is reviewing an agreement the Trump administration reached with the Taliban more than a year ago calling for the withdrawal of the remaining 2,500 U.S. troops on May 1st.
This agreement also requires the Taliban to sever ties with terrorist groups, such as Al Qaeda. U.S. officials have said earlier that some progress has been seen, but more needs to be done, without going into depth.
No decision has been made on the review, but U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is trying to start a stalled peace process between the government and the Taliban armed opposition, has warned the president of Afghanistan that there are still all options on the table and that it should intensify pacification efforts.
Since the United States signed the agreement on Taliban violence, violence has increased, and poverty and high unemployment have increased crime. Despite billions of dollars in international aid to Afghanistan since the collapse of the Taliban government in 2001, 72% of Afghanistan’s 37 million people live below the poverty line and survive on 1.90 dollars or less a day. Unemployment is around 30 percent.
Residents of the Afghan capital Kabul are terrorized by runaway crime, bombings and murders, and they bitterly complain about security failures.
Andarabi sympathized with the complaints of citizens, but said nearly 70 percent of the Afghan police force is fighting the Taliban, eroding efforts to maintain law and order. He added that every day the police face more than 100 Taliban attacks across the country.
Even the UN Security Council has expressed concern over the killings targeting civil society activists, journalists, lawyers and judges. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for many, but the Taliban and the government blame each other for the escalation of attacks.
At a press conference on Friday, the UN Security Council “called for an immediate end to these targeted attacks and stressed the urgent and imperative need to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
Andarabi said progress had been made in stopping the violence over the past month, with more than 400 arrests.
But he stressed that Afghanistan still needs continued support from the international community, including the United States and NATO, both in war and in peacetime.
It will take, for example, a great deal of effort to reintegrate into a peacetime society the tens of thousands of armed men who roam the country, regardless of which faction they come from, he said. Police are facing a daunting battle against narcotics in a country that produces more than 4,000 tons of opium, the raw material used to make heroin, more so than all other opium-producing countries. Peace, Andarabi said, would free the police to fight the war on drugs that is also fueling Afghanistan’s growing crime rate.