Fresh Afghan violence serves as brutal reminder of problems ahead of next round of Taliban and US peace talks

Assassination attempt against senior vice-president casts shadow over latest peace talks, as Kim Sengupta explains

(AFP via Getty Images)

Direct talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban get underway on Saturday with flickering hopes of ending a devastating conflict, but also a violent reminder of the bitter enmities which casts  a shadow over the peace process.

The negotiations were scheduled to begin as Afghanistan marks the anniversary of the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud,  the renowned Mujaheddin leader whose death was part of al-Qaeda’s plans to eliminate domestic opposition in the run-up to the 9/11 attacks in New York.

On Wednesday, 19 years to the day Massoud was murdered by suicide bombers, Amrullah Saleh, the country’s senior vice president, an implacable enemy of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, was the target of a lethal assassination attempt.  

Ten people were killed in the roadside bombing in Kabul.  Fifteen others were injured, among them Mr Saleh, his young son Ebadullah and  two bodyguards. 

This was not the first time that Mr Saleh has faced an attempt on his life. Twenty close aides, including family members, were killed in one of the previous attacks at his office in the capital. He got away on that occasion  by climbing onto the roof next door.  

Also this week, on Tuesday, the Taliban carried out its first major assault for two decades in the Panjshir, the stronghold of the Tajik-led Northern Alliance, and the base from where Massoud, the “Lion of Panjshir” fought his battles against Islamist warlords and the Taliban.

The Taliban have denied being involved in Wednesday’s attack. No other groups have claimed responsibility. 

What happened was, however, an illustration of deadly feuds which have been spawned during the years of strife and the fragility of the negotiations which will supposedly decide the future of Afghanistan.

Mr Saleh is a former chief of the Afghan intelligence service,  NDS  ( National Director of Security), who had been not only been a steadfast opponent of the Talibs, but a public critic of their backers in the Pakistani military and intelligence services, ISI, who fed and watered them.  

He has also been sceptical about the sincerity of the Taliban claims of wanting a settlement, although he has reined himself in to an extent since he became the deputy of President Ashraf Ghani.  

Nevertheless last week, in an interview with the Afghan TV channel ToloNews, he said: “as the vice president, I don’t want to get in the way of peace. But, as Amrullah Saleh, the individual with the past ideology I have, I am irreconcilable with the Taliban. It’s not possible for us to make peace, to work together.”

Despite the reservations, talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government will go ahead in Qatar, as they were always going to do after the US signed their deal with the insurgents  in February opening the way to ending the longest war in America’s history.

There have been  claims, justified,  that the Afghan government has been sidelined,  with the Trump administration determined to pull out all troops within 14 months if the Taliban adheres to agreed conditions.

Horrific attacks on civilians have taken place in the months after the American deal.  One in May was appalling even by Afghanistan’s standards. Gunmen disguised in police uniforms attacked a hospital in Dashti Barchi, a Shia neighbourhood in Kabul. My colleagues and I had gone there in the past to speak to injured patients who had been targeted by Sunni insurgents in sectarian assaults.

The victims this time were mothers and babies, nurses and doctors. The attackers headed directly to the maternity ward, ignoring other patients. Twenty-four people died, 16 of them were women, expectant mothers and nurses. Two newborn babies were also among the dead. One photograph from the carnage was of a young woman holding her baby in death as she had done in life. Nearby lay two young children shot down as they were trying to run away.

The “intra-Afghan” talks had been repeatedly delayed over the issue of prisoners. The authorities have been reluctant to carry out an exchange of 5,000 Talib detainees for 1,000 members of the security forces.

At the end the government acquiesced to pressure from Washington, the detainees were released, the final 400 “hardcore” Taliban and allied insurgent prisoners were set to get out in August. However around 100 of them, convicted of killing western troops, remain incarcerated.  

Among those who have been freed were those responsible for the worst massacres in the last 20 years of the conflict including  the truck bombing in 2017 in Kabul, near the German embassy, with the slaughter of more than 150 people.

According to government reports, 156 of the 400 prisoners had been sentenced to death, 105 were convicted of homicide, 34 of kidnapping and 51 of narcotics trafficking and some of rape.

The release of the bombers and gunmen has caused anguish to many of the families of more than 100,000 civilians who have been killed – around 10,000 last year alone. The civil liberties organisation Human Rights Watch pointed out that a large number of the prisoners have been jailed under “overly broad terrorism laws that provide for indefinite preventive detention".

The agreement on the prisoner release was followed by defence secretary Mark Esper announcing that the US military strength would be reduced from the current level of 8,600 to 5,000 by November. It will eventually lead to the withdrawal of all US-led foreign troops apart, possibly, of intelligence officials.

Both American and Afghan officials agree that there is little chance that Mr Trump – who has been accused of doing nothing about claims of bounties placed on US troops by Russia in Afghanistan – will change his position on the withdrawal.

It is also unlikely that a Joe Biden presidency would lead to renewed enthusiasm for US involvement. Asked recently on CBS News whether he would bear responsibility if the Taliban came back to power, the Democrat challenger responded: “Zero responsibility. The responsibility I have is to protect America’s self-interest and not put our women and men in harm’s way ... that’s what I’d do as president.”

There has been a delay in the Doha talks. A Taliban official claimed the group was waiting for all the remaining prisoners to be released. Afghan and American officials insist the hold-up is due to logistical issues and will be going ahead soon.

There have been changes recently to the Taliban team. The group’s leadership in Pakistan, the “Quetta Shura”, has appointed Mawlai Abdul Hakim, it’s “chief justice”, as the head of its team, with the former chief negotiator, Abbas Stanekzai, his deputy.

Mawlawi Abdul Hakim, who was close to the former Taliban leader Mullah Mansour, is responsible for issuing most of the Taliban’s fatwas, and, it is said, would have the added authority to negotiate terms.

No one expects the negotiations to go smoothly. There is deep apprehension among many in Afghan society, human rights groups, and women’s organisations, about their hard won freedoms being sacrificed to get a deal.

Some familiar with the Taliban leadership maintain that the group has changed and does not want to impose the harsh unbending theocratic rule from their last time in power, under Mullah Omar.

 I am irreconcilable with the Taliban. It’s not possible for us to make peace, to work together

Amrullah Saleh, Afghanistan senior vice-president

This includes senior figures in the previous Taliban regime.

Abdul Hakim Mujahid, who was the sole international face of the Taliban regime at the time of 9/11 has been among a group of elders who had been going to Doha to discuss strategy with the Talib team.

Mr Mujahid, who I met recently in Kabul, said:  “I don’t think the Taliban would try to impose the type of rules from the time when I was in the government. Then the system was spiritual rather than political, there was little written down. Don’t forget that was a wartime government, but the Taliban has said at the [Doha] meetings it would not make the same mistakes as it made then.”

But a former Talib commander, Syed Mohammad Akbar Agha, who had also travelled to Doha, held the eventual aim would be of an Islamic state.

 “The Qatar talks were started at the request of the Americans. They didn’t want to face the same consequence the Russians ended up facing, they did not want to be humiliated. There will be elections after the agreement, but the Taliban will at the end want a government like in Iran, they will have Islamic scholars who will monitor the work of the government, it’ll be watched over by a strong shura”, he said.

Another commander, Maulvi Manzoor, who has returned to Afghanistan after surviving an assassination attempt in Pakistan, warned while speaking in Kandahar:  “There are a lot among the Taliban who do not believe in the talks and want to continue fighting. This is a problem that needs to be solved, otherwise they can easily join up with other groups who don’t want peace. What will the Americans do about that? Will they just leave?”

Leaving Afghanistan is not easy.

The US, UK and their allies armed and trained Afghan Mujahedin to fight Russians and its allied Kabul government and then abandoned the country to lawlessness, Islamist extremism and plotting terror attacks including 9/11.

When the Taliban fell following the American-British invasion, Tony Blair declared “this time we will not walk way”.  But the forces were then pulled out of Afghanistan to topple Saddam Hussein, and the Taliban moved back from their bases in Pakistan to take advantage of the security vacuum ;  swathes of the country was taken over, leading to the UK, US and allies deploying troops in huge numbers.

The talks in Doha may lead to peace breaking out and Afghanistan forging its future in unity and stability without foreign involvement. History, however, suggests that it is going to be anything but plain sailing.