Thomas Ruttig, at Afghanistan Analysts Network, has a long intricate post on the status of talks with the Taliban.
In Ashraf Ghani's view, costs of the security forces and the war are unsustainable. Peace is required to restart the Afghan economy, and direct talks with the Taliban follow from that.
This push for direct talks with the Taleban reflects the president’s philosophy: Peace is a requirement for kick-starting the Afghan economy, which continues to be unsustainable and dependent on the West.
Talks with the Taleban, Again: This time for real?, Afghanistan Analysts Network
Easy to say, hard to achieve.
But that is easier thought out than done.
Talks with the Taleban, Again: This time for real?, Afghanistan Analysts Network
The continued presence of U.S. troops is an issue.
As their spokesman Mujahed said after the talks leak, the Taleban have not finally made up their mind whether (a) they want to talk at all and (b) whether they want to enter into direct talks with the Ghani-Abdullah government. So far, they had declined to talk to the government in Kabul, saying it is not a master of its own decisions and that the US continues to have the final say in Afghanistan.
Talks with the Taleban, Again: This time for real?, Afghanistan Analysts Network
Afghanistan has welcomed reports that the United States will drop plans to cut the number of its forces in Afghanistan to 5,500 by end of 2015, citing requests from military commanders to keep more troops there.
Afghan representative to the United Nations Zahir Tanin told reporters in New York there is a need for the United States to better assess ground realities within the framework of its strategic partnership with Afghanistan to re-examine and readjust the details of the military withdrawal.
“I think we are of the belief that the withdrawal plan should be readjusted in relation with the realities on the ground to enable Afghanistan in a better way to deal with the security challenges it faces,” Tanin said.
Although no final decision on numbers has been made, U.S. officials say, most of the nearly 10,000 U.S. troops currently in Afghanistan are expected to stay well into next year.
Afghanistan Welcomes US Move to Drop Drawdown Plan, Voice of America
Afghan strongmen, and security officials from the former Karzai administration, are objecting.
Karzai’s former NSC chief Rangin Dadfar Spanta called Ghani’s unilateral steps of confidence-building with Pakistan an “absolute appeasement.” Abdul Rabb Rassoul Sayyaf, the leader of one major mujahedin party and a chief advisor to Karzai, complained that because Ghani made this decision alone, he was “dictatorial.” Karzai himself warned against Afghanistan sliding “under Pakistan’s thumb.
In addition, Afghan politicians from outside this circle contacted by AAN are sceptical about Pakistan and warn against “putting all eggs in one basket.” Key Abdullah supporter Atta Muhammad Nur demanded that the Afghan government accommodate all of the country’s political factions in talks with the Taleban. Amrullah Saleh, former head of the Afghan intelligence service and now an opposition politician, tweeted that “sharing the state with the Taliban” would not bring peace, but in actuality it “institutionalizes conflict” (quoted here).
Talks with the Taleban, Again: This time for real?, Afghanistan Analysts Network
A former mujahedeen leader who has emerged as one of President Ashraf Ghani’s most vocal critics rallied thousands of people on Sunday on the outskirts of this city, which has become a hub of opposition sentiment.
Former mujahedeen commanders such as Ismail Khan are talking up their opposition to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who came to office in September on a pledge to revive his country’s flagging economy.
“Six months have passed, and the government hasn’t achieved anything,” Mr. Khan, the former minister of water and energy, said in an interview in his marble-covered palace in Herat on Thursday. “We expected security to improve, and unemployment to be addressed, but this hasn’t happened.”
Afghan City Rises as Opposition Hub, Wall Street Journal
A similar set of names -- Sayyaf, Ismail Khan, Atta Muhammad Nur, among the strongmen -- are discussed in the articles above. Ali Reza Sarwar, at the Diplomat, covers some of the history and politics.
For instance, Abdul Rab Rasul Sayef, a powerful jihadi leader who competed in the first round of Afghanistan’s presidential election in April 2014, called President Ashraf Ghani’s shaky unity government a dictatorship and criticized it for excluding the mujahideen from major political decisions, particularly in the current negotiations with the Taliban and in the normalization of relations with Pakistan. Amir Ismail Khan, the former governor of western Herat province and minister of energy and water under Karzai, called on mujahideen leaders to establish a united political platform to defend their status and rights. Earlier, when Ghani announced his cabinet on January 12, 2015, Ismail Khan warned that war could break out within the next two months because of the exclusion of the mujahideen. In response to the mujahideen leaders, Abdullah Abdullah, the current chief executive officer in the unity government and himself a jihadi leader under the late Commander Ahmad Shah Masoud from the Northern Alliance, said that “being a former jihadi does not qualify one to be appointed as minister as the credit for jihad goes to all the people of Afghanistan.”
Afghanistan’s Mujahideen and a Fragile Peace, the Diplomat
Joseph Goldstein, for the New York Times, reports on the array of U.S.-created and U.S.-backed militias in Afghanistan. The focus is on two militia commanders, Rahimullah and Abdullah, both in Ghazni province.
Scattered across Afghanistan, men like Rahimullah continue to hold ground and rule villages. They are a significant part of the legacy of the American war here, brought to power amid a Special Operations counterinsurgency strategy that mobilized anti-Taliban militias in areas beyond the grasp of the Afghan Army.
From the start, some Afghan officials, including former President Hamid Karzai, objected to the Americans’ practice of forming militias that did not answer directly to the Afghan government. They saw the militias as destabilizing forces that undermined the government’s authority and competed with efforts to build up large and professional military and police forces.
Now, many of those concerns have become a daily reality in Afghan villages.
“For God’s sake, take these people away from us,” Mr. Ahad, 36, said of Rahimullah’s militiamen. “We cannot stand their brutality.”
Afghan Militia Leaders, Empowered by U.S. to Fight Taliban, Inspire Fear in Villages, New York Times
American and international officials seem cautious in discussing reports of ISIL in Afghanistan.
In the Voice of America piece quoted above, ISIL, presumably, makes a nameless appearance.
Nicholas Haysom, the top U.N. envoy in the country, warned the council Monday that while the group has not stuck "firm roots'' in the country, it has the potential "to offer an alternative flagpole to which otherwise isolated insurgent splinter groups can rally.''
Afghanistan Welcomes US Move to Drop Drawdown Plan, Voice of America
Afghan officials, presumably leading to the quote above, speak of ISIL taking root.
The Afghan government said Tuesday that forces belonging to the Islamic State militant organization have taken root in the country, its first official acknowledgment that the group based in Iraq and Syria had reached so far to the east.
Officials said the Islamic State presence includes a relatively small number of Afghan and foreign fighters who have not carried out independent operations but were using Afghanistan as a transit point en route to other battlefields.
Afghan officials acknowledge Islamic State presence in their country, Los Angeles Times
Gary Owen, at Sunny in Kabul, reading TOLO, gives them a name.
Now that Daesh is trying to expand faster than Chipotle, independent operators are raising high the flag of awful in solidarity all over the place. This time in Charkh district, Logar:
Local officials in Logar province have reported a new wave of violence perpetrated by men claiming allegiance to the Daesh group fighting in Iraq and Syria. Reportedly, Daesh wannabes in Logar have burned down a shrine and begun raiding the homes of local families in order to destroy their modern technology and intimidate them from cooperating with government authorities.
Love love love that TOLO called them wannabes, Sunny in Kabul
About what electricity might be available in Kabul, at the moment, following the Panjshir avalanches three weeks ago, twitter is mostly but not entirely dark.