Peace talks the only way forward in Afghanistan

Explosions and heavy gunfire rocked Afghanistan’s capital Kabul earlier this week as insurgents made the point that they are no walkover in this ongoing conflict.

Multinational forces and the international community were quick to praise the Afghan government forces’ response to the coordinated attacks that, for at least 18 hours, jolted the city’s residents, as well as the diplomatic corps.

It was the rebels’ boldest assault on the capital in years. The insurgents began their simultaneous attacks on embassies, government buildings and Nato bases at 1.30pm on Sunday. The United States, German and British embassies and some coalition and Afghan government buildings took direct and indirect hits.

Reportedly, the attacks were the insurgents’ way of disputing Nato’s recent claim that they were weak. Afghan and Western officials blamed the Haqqani militant network that is affiliated with the Taleban and al-Qaeda. The Haqqani network is believed to command the loyalty of an estimated 10,000 fighters and is considered one of the biggest threats to the government and the multinational forces in Afghanistan. 

In all, across the country, 36 militants were killed, while eight government security personnel and three civilians also died in these coordinated attacks.

While praise was pouring in for the seemingly well-organised response by the government’s troops, the Sunday-Monday attack underscored the security challenge facing the Afghan government as multinational forces prepare to downsize their troop contingents and leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

Last September, a similar series of coordinated attacks was carried out against Kabul’s heavily secured diplomatic quarter. Government security forces’ sluggish response then was criticised. Their response to this past weekend’s attacks may be seen as vindication for the government forces. 

Regardless of how fast the troops responded, a glaring point that one cannot overlook is the fact that the security situation in Afghanistan has shown little overall improvement. 

The international forces entered Afghanistan ten years ago to rid the country of al-Qaeda and their Taleban hosts, and stayed on to help rebuild what some would say was a failed state. Today, the foreign terrorists are gone but the Taleban and its affiliates have made a comeback, thus, overshadowing whatever progress has been achieved over the past decade.

It’s one thing to talk about successful counter-attacks, but it’s another to create a situation that prevents such assaults from taking place to begin with. The fact that dozens of militants armed with machine-guns, rocket-propelled grenades and suicide bomb vests could enter the most heavily-fortified quarter of the capital city has raised serious questions about the government’s capability to provide security for citizens and members of the international community residing in Afghanistan.

The fact that the attacks came just one week after a mass jailbreak in Pakistan’s northwest frontier region is not a good sign either. There, Taleban fighters stormed the central prison and broke out 384 prisoners, including 21 high-profile militants.

Perhaps it is time for the Afghan government and the multinational forces to speed up the political settlement with the Taleban, which is not as closely linked with al-Qaeda as the Haqqanis network. 

If the multinational forces and the Afghan government can neutralise the Taleban through a political settlement, they could focus their containment efforts on this more uncompromising outfit. 

This past week has shown that peace and a political settlement can be achieved in Afghanistan, but only with much more diligence and hard work on the part of all parties. President Hamid Karzai has met with the third major insurgent faction, known as Hizb-i-Islami, which is under the leadership of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister who was at one time a US ally. The group has thousands of fighters across the north and eastern part of the country. 

If a deal could be reach with Hekmatyar’s outfit, there is hope for other similar deals. Ten years of fighting has not produced the kind of outcome that the world had hoped for. It’s time to talk peace and reach a political settlement.