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Jane Ferguson:

In reality, even with the limited U.S. air and ground support they currently have, the Taliban is stronger than it has ever been in this two-decades-long war. They continue to bolster their positions around cities. Reassuring the local population that these soldiers are in control is increasingly tough to do.

As the Taliban strengthen their stranglehold on major urban centers in Afghanistan, trying to keep these major roads open is a challenge for the Afghan forces. Trying to secure the capital, even more important.

The February 2020 deal President Trump's administration signed with the Taliban says all foreign forces will leave Afghanistan by May 1st. In return, the group were to promise to prevent Afghanistan becoming a staging ground for terror groups attacking the U.S., and engage in peace negotiations with the Afghan government.

Those peace talks have stalled, and as the deadline to leave looms, violence rages across the country.

The new Biden White House, inheriting both the deal and its deadline, has hinted at delaying that exit date.

At an annual summit of defense ministers this week, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told the NewsHour they haven't given the Taliban a free ride.

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Afghan troops face as deadline to withdraw U.S. troops looms - PBS NewsHour

NATO made no decision on whether or when to pull out of Afghanistan, the military alliance's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday.

"We are faced with many dilemmas, and there are no easy options," Stoltenberg told journalists after talks between defense ministers in Brussels.

"If we stay beyond May 1, we risk more violence, more attacks against our own troops," he said. "But if we leave, then we will also risk that the gains that we have made are lost."

An agreement struck in February 2020 between the Taliban and the United States calls for all US and NATO forces to leave Afghanistan by May 1 in exchange for the Taliban to reduce violence and cooperate with President Ashraf Ghani's government.

However, the Taliban hasincreased violent attacks, and the so-called "intra-Afghan" talks with the government have gone nowhere.

NATO defense ministers also indicated that their engagement in Afghanistan "depends on conditions." They have urged the Taliban to fulfill their promises.

Stoltenberg and the Taliban agree that peace talks are the only way forward. But the path ahead is full of obstacles.

Mohammad Naim, the spokesman for the Taliban's Qatar office, believes that the US-Taliban Doha agreement is still effective. "Neither side will benefit" if the accord is scrapped, he told DW.

There have been reports that US President Joe Biden is reviewing the 2020 deal, that was sealed by the administration of his predecessor Donald Trump. Some analysts have argued that the Doha deal gives too many concessions to Afghan insurgents.

Naim, however, says the agreement offers an "appropriate, reasonable and logical solution" to Afghanistan's problems.

The Taliban spokesmandid not say what the militants would do if NATO decides to keep its troops in Afghanistan.

"There is no other way to solve the existing problems" than sticking to the deal, he stressed.

In an interview with DW on Thursday, German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer warned there could be further instability if NATO forces stayed past that May 1 deadline.

"What's clear is and this is what the Taliban have announced that with the decision not to leave the country by April 30, the threat level will rise, significantly rise for the international troops and also for us," Kramp-Karrenbauer said.

Kramp-Karrenbauer added that the German military in Afghanistan is preparing "how to react" to the deteriorating security situation "in the appropriate way."

The Taliban havenot attacked a single US soldier in Afghanistan since the Doha deal. They have, however, significantly increased their assaults on Afghan security forces and prominent Afghan citizens.

On Thursday, when NATO defense ministers were discussing how to proceed in Afghanistan, two professors at Kabul University were killed in a targeted bomb explosion. The Taliban continue to deny involvement in these attacks, but the rising violence certainly undermines the peace process.

Homeira Saqeb, a human rights activist and a member of the High Peace Council that is negotiating with the Taliban, believes that intra-Afghan talks have reached an impasse. "I hope the negotiations are not a dead end, but they have been interrupted," she told DW.

In addition to internal consultations, the Taliban have visited several times to Pakistan to discuss the ongoing peace negotiations. Theyhave also visited Moscow, Tehran and Turkmenistan.

These visits show the complexity of these negations and the interest of neighboring countries and regional powers in the conflict. This has also delayed any potential progress in intra-Afghan negotiations. Experts say the Taliban are trying to demonstrate their influence and importance through these foreign trips.

The Afghan government is also trying to come to terms with the new situation.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani earlier on Thursday to discuss how the Biden administration would review the accord's progress.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said the pair agreed that Afghanistan needed "a just and durable political settlement and permanent and comprehensive ceasefire."

The US invaded Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11, 200,attacks in a bidto stop the country from serving as a haven for international terrorists. NATO allies and partners followed after.

Close to two decades of bloody conflict have claimed the lives of more than 40,000 Afghan civilians, and cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

It is now up to Washington if it wants to continue its engagement with Afghanistan. NATO, most likely, will follow Biden's line.

Additional reporting by Shakila Ebrahimkhail.

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Afghanistan: Why NATO's indecision could be a precursor to civil war - DW (English)

Though Taliban tactics vary from region to region, the outcomes are usually the same: increased taxation on highways, plummeting morale among the Afghan security forces with dwindling U.S. support and growing fear among those living in once-secure areas.

The Talibans aim is to force the Afghan government into complying with their terms of peace. In Qatar, Taliban leaders have demanded the release of around 7,000 more prisoners and the establishment of an interim government, two requests that Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistans president, has so far refused.

The Taliban seem to believe that applying this pressure, staging their fighters to potentially strike Kandahar and other urban centers, will pressure the U.S. to withdraw, or else, Mr. Watkins said. The strategic logic might have the opposite effect.

To prepare for a possible multipronged attack should the United States stay beyond the May 1 deadline, the Pentagon has requested additional military options including an increase of U.S. troops or a commitment of more air support from U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan, according to two U.S. officials. Whether these requests will be granted depends on the Biden administrations next move, which is expected to be announced in coming weeks upon completing a review of the current agreement in place with the Taliban.

The unrest has already delayed the handover of Kandahar Airfield, a sprawling American base east of the capital, to Afghan forces in recent months. For now, a small detachment of U.S. and NATO troops remain to support the struggling Afghan forces, according to a U.S. military official.

With the police force mostly in ruin, the Afghan army and commandos have moved into Kandahar, beginning operations in November to retake territory that was then retaken by the Taliban. Commando officers said their forces had been exhausted by frequent orders to fill in for their police counterparts.

In nearby Arghandab District, the site of the Talibans northern offensive on Kandahar city, army leaders and police officers say theyre severely understaffed and their pleas for support have gone unheeded by officials in Kabul.

Originally posted here:
The Taliban Close In on Afghanistan, Pushing the Country to the Brink - The New York Times

President Joe Bidens day-one decision to halt construction of the Canada-to-Nebraska Keystone XL oil pipeline has sparked criticism, including false claims of conspiracies.

A post widely shared on Facebook takes a different tack, suggesting Bidens actions are contradictory. The lower-case post reads: "biden cancels our pipeline but helps build afghanistans pipeline? help me understand"

The post was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

The allusion is to the long-planned Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, which has received verbal support from the U.S. but, according to experts, no tangible assistance.

"The TAPI pipeline has been supported by the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump administrations, but the U.S. has not spent any money on it," said Barnett Rubin, senior fellow at New York Universitys Center on International Cooperation and former director of the centers Afghanistan Pakistan Regional Program. He is also a former senior adviser to the U.S. State Departments special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Claims about Keystone XL

The Keystone XL pipeline was to have transported crude oil from Canada to Nebraska, where it would connect with another leg stretching to Gulf Coast refineries. Biden said with a Jan. 20 executive order that he was revoking the pipelines construction permit for economic and environmental reasons.

The post were checking appeared several days after a Feb. 6 article suggested, without evidence, that under Biden, the U.S. had brokered a Feb. 6 meeting in Turkmenistan in support of TAPI, which would carry natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India.

Two other articles citing that article connected TAPI to Bidens cancellation of the Keystone XL.

We asked the State Department if the Biden administration has helped build the pipeline or has taken a position on the pipeline. A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. "has long supported efforts by Afghanistan and its Central Asian neighbors to strengthen their connectivity, boost economic coordination and improve regional transportation infrastructure, including energy infrastructure."

On. Oct. 9, weeks before Bidens election, the U.S., Turkmenistan and Afghanistan issued a statement regarding a videoconference that representatives of the three governments held the previous day to discuss a variety of issues. The statement said the nations intend to "work together to identify and implement infrastructure projects," including TAPI.

We interviewed two other experts on Afghanistan: Marvin Weinbaum, director of Afghanistan and Pakistan Studies at the nonpartisan Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., and a former Afghanistan specialist at the State Department; and Jason Campbell, a RAND Corp. international security policy researcher and former country director for Afghanistan in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy.

Both said they are not aware of any money or other tangible assistance given by the U.S. for construction of the pipeline.

They said progress on construction has been slow for a variety of reasons, including concerns about security in the region.

"The joke goes, its just a pipe dream," said Weinbaum. "But its one that should be taken seriously, in terms of its potential."

Our ruling

A widely shared Facebook post claimed Biden "helps build Afghanistans pipeline."

The U.S. has long supported the long-planned Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline, which would traverse Afghanistan.

Asked about the claim, the State Department said only that the U.S. has long supported regional cooperation in the area, including on energy infrastructure.

Experts said no administration, including Bidens, has provided tangible assistance on construction of the pipeline.

We rate the statement False.

Read more:
No, Biden administration is not helping build a pipeline in Afghanistan - PolitiFact

In testimony to the European Parliament about efforts to end the war in Afghanistan, Crisis Group expert Andrew Watkins describes the current scale of fighting, Taliban policies and how outside actors can support the peace process.

Crisis Groups Senior Analyst for Afghanistan, Andrew Watkins, testified to the European Parliaments Delegation for relations with Afghanistan on 12 February 2021 about how to judge the current state of the conflict, what he sees as the Talibans perspectives on peace efforts and how this should inform how the international community can best support the process.

Watkins notes that Afghanistans war has seen measurable changes in the intensity of the conflict, which have led to some drop in casualties, but it remains one of the most violent in the world. Taliban use of suicide vehicle bombings halted for a time, but was gradually resumed, and the groups traditional assaults on provincial centres were replaced by a campaign of targeted individual killings. He explains dynamics among the Taliban that shape their views on reducing violence and ending the war, a far cry from the ceasefire that the world expected after the 2020 deal between the U.S. and the Taliban. He says that the group are the aggressors in the conflict today, and that current levels of violence are no foundation for a lasting peace process.

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Testimony on Afghanistan to the European Parliament - Afghanistan - ReliefWeb