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Last week more than 200 Afghan interpreters who worked with the U.S. military landed in Virginia, recipients of a special visa for those who served alongside U.S. forces. Interpreters who risked their lives serving as the eyes and voice of U.S. troops are receiving at last the administrative okay to come to America with their families to escape the Taliban.

What is not yet clear is how the story ends for the hundreds of Afghan women who supported the U.S. and NATO diplomatic effort these past two decades. And the thousands of community activists across the nation advocating for women. What happens to the women who served U.S. State Department officials, who worked in the U.S. embassy, and who implemented aid programs? Women who stood up alongside the internationals in their country to push for progress for women and girls?

Right now, Afghan women activists who came of age in the two decades following Americas 2001 toppling of the Taliban face an urgent question: do they stay in Afghanistan and continue their work on the ground or seek safety in a neighboring country or an overseas haven such as the U.S., Canada or the U.K.? A generation of Afghan women leaders who pushed for the progress of Afghan women and girls and changed their country in the process must now decide their own fate, with little chance of help from their former allies. I have had the privilege of writing about many of them since 2005 and we have stayed in touch this past decade and a half. Their journey now faces a question mark that has no right answer, only deep responsibility and real consequences.

For some, the answer is to stayat least as long as they can. That is the answer Kamila Sidiqi gave to her own question of what is next. During the Russian invasion, the Afghan civil war and Taliban rule, she never left her country. Indeed, she braved rockets falling from the sky to attend high school while her hometown of Kabul was gutted. Her father taught his nine daughters from girlhood to be patriots who served their nation and loved their land. During the 1990s, when the Taliban ruled Kabul, Sidiqi remained in the city and started a dressmaking business that gave jobs to women and girls around her neighborhood, including the daughters of Taliban. We have spent a lot of time together since 2005, discussing the future, and I have never seen her more determined, or more concerned for the next generation.

She has the ability to leave Afghanistan, but is fighting to remain. She is pushing forward with her consultancy, employing dozens and training hundreds of women on the basics of business. The political uncertainty means business of all kinds is now a question mark and securing investment an extreme challenge, and still she does not feel she can leave, despite the fear she feelsfor the first time everin her own home city. Things feel more dangerous in Afghanistan, she said, even more than in previous years, because now no place is safe from attack. Still, she says, her job is to stay and to be there for the majority of people in her country who want to support their children, earn a decent wage and fight for a better future.

The people living in Afghanistan need jobs, they need work, they need to survive, Sidiqi says. I always gave a commitment to my country to be there for it. This is the time that I have to be here for my people.

Others find themselves working overseas in order to stay safe while their hearts and heads remain in Afghanistan, focused on helping those in danger.

Wazhma Frogh, whom I first met in 2008, worked on the peace process for the past several years. She served as part of the High Peace Council and has worked since the early 2000s as a peace activist and advocate for women and girls. She cofounded the Women and Peace Studies Organization a decade ago and has played an active role in the Afghan Womens Network. The U.S. State Department gave her its Women of Courage Award in 2009. In her family are women who have broken all kinds of taboos, in public service, the private sector and academia.

She now has left nearly every one of her loved ones at home to seek safety in North America. Each night her day starts. Beginning at 11.30 pm she gets to work speaking with women who are facing danger across the provinces and seeking her help. Saturday night into Sunday morning she stayed up working to help women from Herat, Kandahar and Helmand. Airports are closed and phone lines are largely down due to the fighting. This means getting women activists to safety is not only very dangerous, but extremely difficult. Even moving a family from one district to another is not easy now, let alone from one province to another, especially with cell phone connections intermittent.

It is very complicated; you feel guilty because of the fact that I have had the opportunity to save my life that ten or a hundred or a thousand other women didnt have, Frogh said. But at the same time the chance that I am able to raise their voices makes it mean something.

Frogh wrestled with her decision, and with the reality that the people she loves most in the world remain in Afghanistan. But in the end she felt she had to continue speaking up for others and, for the sake of those who counted on her, she had to take care of herself.

There is this expectation that activists need to sacrifice their lives and know that if they are killed there will be a vigil in their names, Frogh said. But I dont want to be a vigil, I want to be a help to all those people who stood by me.

Nargis Nehan knows firsthand the weight of this personal deliberation between the need to keep herself alive and the duty to protect others. The breast cancer survivor leads an NGO focused on women and peace building. She does all she can to avoid risk, but in the end has told her mother, with whom she is close, that she is reconciled to whatever comes.

I have dedicated my life to this work, and I love what I do trying to raise the voice of those that are voiceless, Nehan said. If I have helped someone, that means more to me than having a comfortable day, so that is why I am staying here. This is the hardest timeif anyone is committed to trying to make a difference for women and girls, then this is the time.

Like Frogh, Nehan spent most of this past weekend talking to women and men in Kandahar, Helmand and Herat forced to flee their homes and their possessions as a result of the fighting. She is battling now to get more emergency support from the U.S., Europe and other NATO allies to women who spoke up for other women who now have absolutely no place to go and no place safe to which to escape. And she says there is no time for the luxury of looking away.

We have no choice but to get back to our struggle; we need to talk about peace in Afghanistan, Nehan says. We cannot get out of this responsibility, no matter how bad the situation gets. The world should not see us as victims begging for their support; women have been a consistent and loyal partner for the international community for the last 20 years. We have never changed our position no matter how hard the situation has gotten, and we will continue our struggle.

All the discussion with activists made me ask a question I had not wanted to, but now could not think how to avoid. Wasnt Nehan worried about the danger that might lie ahead if the Taliban returned to power?

There might be some of us that might be sacrificed; that is the very harsh reality of the struggle, Nehan says. But how many will they be killing? They might terrorize people, they might kill some of us to shut others up but that will not continue endlessly because women will organize and will raise their voice.

Having spent years interviewing young women like Sidiqi who served as their familys sole breadwinner under the Taliban in the 1990s, I know she is right. In the 1990s, during life under the Taliban, Afghan women started home businesses, taught school, served as doctors, worked with health-related NGOs, and taught Microsoft Office. Women made the difference between survival and starvation for their families and made the most of the narrow space they had for their communities. Unacknowledged outside their borders and underground within them, they worked for a brighter path for the next generation. This time will be no different.

Afghan women will push forward no matter what. The only question is how bad it will get for them: will the Taliban once more beat with sticks and television antennas women who challenge the status quo? Will they imprison women who break their rules and ban women from going to work or university? Will they force fathers at the threat of death to hand their daughterssometimes girls only in their teensover to marry Taliban fighters? Is there a chance the world will be there to support them diplomatically, politically and economically as they live on the front lines of extremism and fight for their futures and their countrys?

Right now the answer looks to be no. And that is a loss for all of us.

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These Women Fought For Afghanistans Future. Now They Don't Want to Leave It Behind - TIME

Passivity and withdrawal in Afghanistan is beginning to look like a short-sighted sell-out. A long-running civil war in Afghanistan will do no one any good in the long-run not even the Taliban, their henchmen in Pakistan or their ISIS and al Qaeda terrorist cronies. They will all get bogged down.

British commanders think the fight is far from over and would like to see a more dynamic approach from Britains political leadership, No10 and the Foreign Office especially.

The Biden approach, now tested on several fronts, is causing bewilderment and confusion among allies. We were assured that his foreign engagement team were thoroughly experienced and safe hands. The world would be a calmer place on their watch, as opposed to what came before under team Trump. Yet so far we seem to be getting posture without strategy or practical engagement.

Iran, under its new president Ebrahim Raisi, seems bent on testing the resolve of the US and its allies. The attack on the Mercer Street tanker last week was an escalation. The drone strike killed two crew and clearly was aimed at sinking it. The hijack on Tuesday of the Dubai-registered Asphalt Princess appears a stunt gone wrong. It is a clear sign that Tehran means to up the ante.

Biden appears to be banking on restarting the nuclear JCPOA talks a bid to re-engage Iran diplomatically, which Britain supports. But the Iranians didnt turn up to the seventh round of talks in Vienna. Meanwhile the Iranian centrifuges keep spinning.

Time for realistic strategic thinking of the kind so completely ignored in the pull-back from Afghanistan and Iraq. Four accomplished generals, Petraeus and Milley in the US, and Richards and defence chief Carter in UK, have warned about the strategy vacuum. Leaving Afghanistan to the Afghans, as Biden so inelegantly put it, is no option.

Its not even an option for the US, because whatever boils up from the international franchise extremists in Afghanistans newly ungoverned plains and mountains will surely hit us here in Europe. And it will come to America.

The generals are right to warn our political leaders about getting a grip on strategic reality.

As General Carter warns, in Afghanistan we need deterrence to avoid escalation which too often leads to miscalculation.

Strategy is no airy-fairy concept of military science from the Clausewitz laboratory. It means policy and planning for our international and national security.

Robert Fox is the Evening Standards Defence Editor

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We urgently need a strategy in Afghanistan - Evening Standard

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Indias eminently successful twodecadeold foreign policy, driven by its soft power and investments worth $3 billion, is getting unravelled in the graveyard of empires Afghanistan. Having decisively defeated the Taliban and alQaeda in 2001-2002, the US and its allies have finally abandoned their failed nationbuilding mission and left Afghanistan to its fate. A bloody civil war is raging between the legitimate government and the Taliban.

Except India, all regional stakeholders Pakistan, China, Iran and Russia (probably also standing in for Turkmenistan and Tajikistan) have placed their bets on the Taliban. Turkey, desperate to revive its Ottoman legacy, is pursuing a middle path by trying to gain a foothold through its proposal to provide security for Kabul airport. However, with its duplicitous conduct, inexplicably condoned by the US, only Pakistan, as the original creator, reviver and now active supporter, currently seems to have some direct leverage over the resurgent Taliban.

The future of Afghanistan hinges on the duration and outcome of the civil war and the avatar in which the Taliban manifests itself. There is no certainty that the Taliban will emerge as an outright winner. Even if it manages to topple the current government, a new internecine tribal civil war may commence. The probability of the radical Taliban reforming itself is very low. India will have to take into account these factors to decide its tactical and strategic foreign policy.

Also read: To deal with China on LAC, India must downsize and restructure the armed forces

Afghanistan is a multiethnic and multilingual society with very strong tribal loyalties even within the ethnic groups. The main ethnic groups are Pashtun, 42 per cent; Tajik, 27 per cent; Hazara, 9 per cent; Uzbek, 9 per cent; and other smaller groups 13 per cent. The Pashtuns are the major ethnic group in the south and the east, the Tajiks in the northeast. The predominant groups in north-central Afghanistan are the Hazaras, Tajiks, and Uzbeks.

Historically, stable governments/regimes have been Pashtunled but with a proportional share of power with other groups. The Taliban is predominantly Pashtun and loathes to share power. In the past, it has also targeted the minority 10 per cent, mostly Hazara Shia population. The present elected Afghan government is also multiethnic with a Pashtun President.

Officially, the Afghan National Army (ANA) also has a proportional ethic representation but there are reports that after the resurrection of the Taliban, the Tajiks have become predominant. Also, the ANA is composed of a younger population that has witnessed stability and relative prosperity post2001.

The Taliban has shown no inclination to share power or form a national government. It has been fighting the ANA for the last decade and has been ruthless in its treatment of captured soldiers. The Ashraf Ghani-led Afghan Government is well aware of the fate of former President Najibullah in 1996. The Taliban takes no prisoners.

It is pertinent to recall the civil war in Afghanistan 1989-2001. After the exit of Soviet Union, the unpopular government under Najibullah fought for three years, 1989-92. Thereafter, the Mujahideen groupings under warlords fought amongst themselves for four years. 1995 onwards, the Taliban, actively supported by Pakistan, took another three years to establish control, but the Northern Alliance still held on and finally returned to Kabul in November 2001.

It is my assessment that the civil war is not going to be a cakewalk for the Taliban. The probability of history repeating itself is very high. The Afghan government and the ANA will fight with their backs to the wall to force a reconciliation on the Taliban, failing which, it will fight to the finish. This will give enough time to the nonPashtun ethnic groups to reorganise themselves and carry on the civil war. All stakeholders, except Pakistan, riding the Taliban bandwagon are under no illusion. China, Russia, Iran and Turkey are only tactically backing the Taliban but strategically keeping their options open. They will not directly assist the Taliban in any manner.

Also read: 1962, IPKF to Balakot, Ladakh Indias record in writing factual military history is poor

The suave representatives of the Taliban in Doha have lulled the foreign offices of the world to believe that it is a nationalist organisation, has shed its extremely radical Islamic ideology and will transform Afghanistan, as per my assessment, into a conservative Islamic State on the Iran model.

However, its conduct has shown no change. It has reimposed its radical version of the sharia in areas under its control as it had done in 1995-2001. Womens rights in terms of schooling, dress, movement and jobs no longer exist. There are reports of lists of women above 15 years and widows below 45 being trafficked for marriage with its Talibs. Surrendering soldiers have been ruthlessly killed.

The Taliban has promised the US and China, and also, most likely, Iran, Russia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, that it will not allow terrorists operating against them to be based in Afghanistan. It should suffice to mention that in 2001, it accepted destruction and loss of Afghanistan itself rather than handover Osama bin Laden.

In my view, heady with the victory over the US, the Taliban will return in a more radicalised avatar. Its appeal lies in its radicalism. The Taliban is its own master. After the defeat of the ISI, it will view itself as the chief protector and propagator of Islam. All countries banking on it for not supporting terrorists are in for a surprise and so is Pakistan when Pashtun nationalism comes to the fore.

Also read: The glorious battle Indian soldiers fought in Italy, on a terrain as tough as the Himalayas

In India, the strategic community has reduced the debate to whether India should back the beleaguered Afghan government or the odds on favourite, the Taliban. The drivers are to retain our influence in Afghanistan and prevent Pakistan from using the Taliban in Jammu and Kashmir.

Traditionally, India has enjoyed the goodwill of the people of Afghanistan. Almost every Afghan politician has studied in India. Our economic contribution of $3 billion is the second-highest after the US. But our influence in Afghanistan is with an elected government. The biggest gain over the last two decades has been that with active cooperation of the Afghan government, we could conduct covert operations against a common adversary. What influence can we have over the Taliban except to safeguard our embassy?

The fear of the Taliban coming for terrorism in J&K is a figment of imagination. As the Northern Army Commander in 2007-8, I had carried out a study to put an end to wild rumours regarding infiltration by al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The conclusion was that let alone the Taliban, no Pashtun, Sindhi or Balochi terrorist had ever been killed or caught in J&K. All foreign terrorists had been from Pakistan Punjab. Moreover, Pakistan will be more worried about Pashtun nationalism, terrorism emanating from the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) and from across the Durand Line. Also, the road to Srinagar (hearts and minds of the people) runs from Delhi and not from Kabul.

In my view, India should tactically engage with the Taliban to cater for its change of heart to form a national government or a quick victory. Strategically, we should continue with the existing policy, highlighting the need for reconciliation and a national government. As a worst case, India should have the will and patience to shape the history to repeat itself.

Lt Gen H S Panag PVSM, AVSM (R) served in the Indian Army for 40 years. He was GOC in C Northern Command and Central Command. Post retirement, he was Member of Armed Forces Tribunal. Views are personal.

(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)

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A civil war in Afghanistan wont be a cakewalk for Taliban. Thats opportunity India - ThePrint

Kabul, Afghanistan, August 5, 2021 The International Rescue Committee (IRC) expresses grave concern for the marked escalation in violence across large parts of Afghan territory over the last 48 hours.

This major increase in violence could cause devastation for civilians who are at risk of being caught up between warring parties. According to the latest UNAMA report, civilian casualties reached record levels in the first half of 2021 and without a significant de-escalation in violence, Afghanistan is set to witness the highest ever number in a single year. Afghanistan has already produced the second-largest displaced population in the world, after Syria, and with reports that 30,000 are fleeing Afghanistan per day, this number will rise exponentially.

Already, around 360,000 people have been displaced by conflict this year, but accurate and up-to-date figures are unavailable as most of the humanitarian staff operating amid the main areas of the fighting have also been displaced.

Vicki Aken, Afghanistan Director for the IRC, said,

In Afghanistan, women and children made up close to half of all civilian casualties in the first half of this year, and the latest violence should be cause for great alarm for members of the international community. Where fighting is most intense, humanitarian aid workers have also been forced to temporarily flee. If left to unravel further, we could see a major exodus of the population to neighbouring countries, with many people forced to turn to dangerous and illegal routes out of the country as external borders remain closed.

Meanwhile, the greatest need remains inside Afghanistan, and hundreds of thousands of people have already been internally displaced due to conflict as well as drought. Humanitarian organisations like the IRC are committed to remaining in Afghanistan and continuing to deliver support to its population; it is vital that world leaders do the same. The international community cannot afford to turn their backs but instead must double-down on commitments to ensure humanitarian access for the delivery of aid, advocate for an immediate ceasefire and support a peaceful settlement, and provide resettlement pathways for Afghan refugees.

The United States has begun relocating a group of Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants to Virginia. The International Rescue Committee is providing services for these individuals, including reception, medical care, case management and resettlement by a sponsoring resettlement agency. However, this is not a solution to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan even at the most optimistic this would only represent 0.02% of those in humanitarian need.

The overall humanitarian situation is worsening as the conflict intensifies; a situation that should be untenable for world leaders. Afghanistan needs sustained aid and diplomatic support from both Western and regional powers - without this, there is little chance that needs will be met and peace will be found.

With more than 18 million people in need of humanitarian aid, Afghanistan is facing an acute emergency, ranking second on the IRCs 2021 emergency Watchlist - a global list of humanitarian crises that are expected to deteriorate the most over the coming year. The IRC has been working in Afghanistan since 1988 providing aid to the most vulnerable. With more than 1,700 staff and volunteers, the IRC reaches more than a million Afghans each year with education, protection, water and sanitation, emergency response, and economic recovery programs.

About the IRC

The International Rescue Committee responds to the worlds worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is at work in over 40 countries and over 20 U.S. citieshelping people to survive, reclaim control of their future, and strengthen their communities.Learn more at http://www.rescue.org and follow the IRC on Twitter & Facebook.

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IRC warns that increased conflict could spell tragedy for Afghanistan, where 18 million people already live in dire need of humanitarian assistance -...

The Western armies lose no matter how big and well-equipped they are because the insurgents are fighting on home ground

I will never kneel before such a destructive force (as the Taliban), declared Ashraf Ghani, the soon-to-be ex-president of Afghanistan. We will either sit knee-to-knee for real negotiations at the table, or break their knees on the battlefield. Good luck with that, Ashraf.

General Sami Sadat, still commander of Helmand province as I write this (although perhaps not by the time you read it), was equally confident, but warned that the safety of the world is at stake: This will increase the hope for small extremist groups to mobilise in the cities of Europe and America, and will have a devastating effect on global security.

And how did it all come to this? Ashraf Ghani pointed out that it is obviously Americas fault. The reason for our current situation is that the (US decision to withdraw) was taken abruptly, he told parliament on Monday.

Well, fair enough. US forces have been in Afghanistan for a bare twenty years and the treacherous cowards are already quitting. Donald Trump signed a treaty with the Taliban eighteen months ago promising that all US troops would leave Afghanistan by the 1st of May this year. Short notice indeed.

Im tempted to go back into the archives and find similar brave declarations of imminent victory by South Vietnamese generals (followed by similar predictions of global disaster if they are abandoned) in the final weeks before the helicopters started plucking Americans from the US embassy roof in Saigon in 1975. But its a nice day and I cant be bothered.

President Ghani, General Sadat, and all their friends are reading from the same old script, just 46 years later, and once that final scene has played out in Kabul theyll go and live in the United States. (Dont worry. Theyve saved up enough money.) The only real surprise here is how thoroughly Western armed forces managed to forget their own history.

Im not talking about the old history, when three invasions of Afghanistan at the height of British imperial power (1839-42; 1878-80; 1919) all failed to achieve their objectives.

Im not even talking about the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979-89 when the United States helped the Taliban and similar Islamist groups to do to the Russians exactly what the Taliban have now done to the Americans themselves.

The problem there was that Americans did not see Russians as Western, although viewed from a low orbit they are virtually identical. US generals, therefore, believed that some essential difference between the two armies protected American troops from the fate of the Russians.

Never mind all that. The really unpardonable mistake was forgetting all the lessons Western armies had learned from a dozen lost guerilla wars in former colonies between 1954 and 1975.

France in Algeria and Indochina, Britain in Kenya, Cyprus and Aden, Portugal in Angola and Mozambique, the proxy wars in Rhodesia and South-West Africa (as they were then known), and the United States again in Indochina. All the wars were lost, and yet the defeated imperial powers didn't lose anything except face.

Western armies really did learn the lessons of those defeats. As a young man in the 1970s I taught military history and strategy in the Canadian Forces Staff College and then at Britains Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. The doctrine I taught was a) Western armies always lose guerilla wars in the Third World, and b) it never really matters.

The Western armies lose no matter how big and well-equipped they are because the insurgents are fighting on home ground. They cant quit and go home because they already are home. Your side can always quit and go home, and sooner or later your own public will demand that they do. So, you are bound to lose eventually, even if you win all the battles.

But losing doesnt matter, because the insurgents are always first and foremost nationalists. They may have picked up bits of some grand ideology to make them feel that history is on their side - Marxism or Islamism or whatever - but all they want is for you to go home so they can run their own show. They wont actually follow you home.

By 1975 this hard-earned wisdom was the official doctrine in almost every army in the Western world, but military generations are short. A typical military career is only 25 years, so by 2001 nobody remembered it. Their successors had to start learning it again the hard way. Maybe by now, they have.

(Gwynne Dyer's new book is 'The Shortest History of War'. The views expressed are personal.)

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Afghanistan: How Did They Think It Would End? - Daily Pioneer