On Friday, head Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that the 2020 Doha peace agreement was no longer valid. This agreement was negotiated by the Trump administration directly with the Taliban, without involving the Afghan government, and was highly favorable to the Taliban.
The Doha process required the US and NATO to withdraw all troops and the Afghan government to release thousands of Taliban prisoners, and the Taliban soon resumed offensive operations and took over the country in August 2021.
As their part of the deal, the Taliban promised only to prevent al-Qaeda and similar organizations from using Afghanistan as a base to threaten the security of the US or its allies. As of Friday, the Taliban have withdrawn that promise, which means the US and NATO withdrew their troops for nothing.
In “The return of al-Qaeda and Islamic State”, the Telegraph’s Adrian Blomfield reported in October that al-Qaeda has been offered protection and support by powerful elements of the Taliban, and has built nine training and recruiting centers in Afghanistan, more than it had even in its 9/11 heyday. The Taliban are more concerned with the rising power of Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), a sworn enemy of both the Taliban and the US. Last month in “From Afghanistan to America: the rising reach of the Islamic State Khorasan Province” the Long War Journal’s Janatan Sayeh reported that the UN Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team assessed ISKP as the world’s greatest extraregional terrorist threat.
Given the Taliban’s failure to suppress their enemies ISKP, and the withdrawal of their promise to suppress al-Qaeda etc., it seems only a matter of time before terrorists based in Afghanistan will strike the US or its dwindling band of allies.
If and when that happens, Trump will focus his attention on blaming everybody but himself.
