Afghanistan : Fear of a Taliban takeover rises

 

The Taliban Have Tracked Me’

In Logar province, just outside of Kabul, fear of a Taliban takeover rises.

BY ALI M. LATIFI

 | APRIL 20, 2021, 12:27 PM

 

In this picture taken on December 14, 2019, a young shepherd plays with his sheep on the outskirts of Logar province. (FARID ZAHIR/AFP via Getty Images)

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POL-E ALAM, Afghanistan—Shaima Zargar, director of women’s affairs in Logar province, just south of Kabul, says that up until a year ago she dressed pretty much as she pleased. She certainly never wore a chadari, or burqa, the forbidding blue shroud that the Taliban forced all women to wear the last time they were in power. 

Now, Zargar puts a burqa on wherever she goes.

 “The Taliban have tracked me. I’ve been actively followed. I’ve received direct threats, and it’s all been over the last year,” Zargar said of the period since the Taliban signed an armistice with the Trump administration. That fear has only grown in the last few days since U.S. President Joe Biden announced he was pulling all U.S. troops out by the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11, and NATO followed suit.

Her greatest fear right now is violence and a sense it may be impossible for under-equipped local government forces to hold off the Taliban, said Zargar, whose office has worked hard to ensure the rights of Logari women. “We’ve fought back against cultural practices and prejudices, but none of that matters if families are afraid to send their daughters to school due to fear of bombs and mines,” she said.

That fear is borne out in the numbers. According to the United Nations, the first quarter of 2021 saw a 37 percent increase in civilian casualties among women.

“The number of Afghan civilians killed and maimed, especially women and children, is deeply disturbing,” said Deborah Lyons, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan.

In recent years, the United States has sought a “conditions-based” withdrawal from Afghanistan. From George W. Bush to Donald Trump, every president who has presided over the war has made reference to these nebulous conditions, which kept the resurgent Taliban on their toes. 

All that changed last week when Biden officially announced the total pullout of U.S. forces, saying: “We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to create ideal conditions for the withdrawal and expecting a different result.” 

But the lack of promising or stabilizing conditions is what worries most ordinary Afghans, since they are the ones actually living those conditions on the ground, including rising insecurity, a stagnate economy, and increased civilian casualties.

One need not look far from Kabul for proof that after two decades of foreign intervention, the situation in Afghanistan remains grim and the Afghan National Security Forces are left with an uphill battle. Logar province is a clear example of the kinds of challenges the Afghan government will be left to contend with from Sept. 12 onward.