Taliban insurgents announced a plan to launch a spring offensive “mainly focusing on crushing, killing and capturing American invaders,” in a repudiation of the Afghan government’s offer to start peace talks.
“Our primary target will be the American invaders and their intelligence agents,” the Afghan Taliban said in a statement, per Pakistan’s Daily Times. “The planning and strategy … is based on guerilla, offensive, infiltrated and various other new and intricate tactics against the new war strategy of the enemy, mainly focusing on crushing, killing and capturing American invaders and their supporters.”
That’s an official repudiation of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s recent call for peace talks with the Taliban. It comes just a few days after a suicide bombing that targeted a voter registration center in the capital city of Kabul; that attack, however, was claimed by the Islamic State, which is seeking to establish itself in Afghanistan following the loss of most Islamic State holdings in Iraq and Syria.
The State Department condemned the announcement. “There is no need for a new ‘fighting season,’” acting Secretary of State John Sullivan said in a Wednesday evening statement. “As President Ghani recently said, the Taliban should turn their bullets and bombs into ballots. They should run for office. They should vote. We encourage Taliban leaders to return to Afghanistan from their foreign safe havens and work constructively for Afghanistan’s future. More violence will not bring peace and security to Afghanistan.”
Afghan officials countered that the Taliban insurgents can’t win through force of arms, while maintaining that they would continue to look for peace talks. “We will never give up on that hope,” Omar Zakhilwal, Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, told regional media. “While we continue to defend ourselves against their onslaught and defend the population we would also be seeking continuously peace with them.”
President Trump adopted a strategy late in 2017 that escalates the pace of airstrikes against the Taliban and other terrorists in the country. But his administration’s plan puts a premium on pressuring Pakistan to crack down on the Taliban affiliates that launch cross-border attacks on the Afghan people. Then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned last year that Pakistan might face sanctions or lose its status as a major non-NATO ally, to say nothing of potential U.S. airstrikes on terrorists in the country.
“All those things … are on the table for discussion, if, in fact, they are unwilling to change their posture or change their approach to how they’re dealing with the numerous terrorist organizations that find safe haven in Pakistan,” Tillerson said in August.
Trump decided to suspend $255 million of security assistance funding to Pakistan in January, but that didn’t prevent a flurry of midwinter attacks by the Taliban. The outburst has fueled suspicions that Pakistani intelligence services are escalating their support for terrorist groups as part of a feud with the U.S.
“When you do the explosive residue tests on a lot of these, you end up with military-grade explosives that are not widely available,” the Christian Science Monitor quoted a “western official” based in Kabul as saying in February.
U.S. officials also suspect that Russia is supplying the Taliban with weaponry. Russia, denying those charges, is citing the potential threat of terrorism spreading out of Afghanistan to justify a larger role in the country.
“We must redouble our efforts to preclude the proliferation of conflicts from Afghanistan and to promote a political settlement of the Afghan crisis,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.
Mike Pompeo, who expended CIA operations in Afghanistan as the chief of the spy agency and is expected to be confirmed as secretary of state in a Thursday vote, defended Trump’s strategy during his confirmation hearing.
“It is humble in its mission; it understands that we’ve been there an awfully long time; it has an objective of leaving, but it is not prepared to leave until such time where we can greatly diminish the threat our homeland from terrorism that may emanate from there,” Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “And with an effort alongside that which will be required to achieve that first objective to create — I want to be humble — more stability in Afghanistan.”
