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Taliban takeover

An arranged game


Published : 16 Aug 2021 10:00 PM | Updated : 16 Aug 2021 11:28 PM

Takeover of Afghanistan by militant and terrorist group Taliban and ousting of Ashraf Ghani-led government on Sunday seem to be the part of an arranged game.

The game started when the United States decided to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan 20 years after fighting against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda since 2001. The game took a final turn when China extended its supports to the Taliban.

Accordingly, the game is over when the US, China, Russia, Britain and many other powerful countries recognised the Taliban as a ‘political power’ that they earlier branded as a ‘terrorist’ group. All of them are now vowing to work with the Taliban to ‘build’ Afghanistan. 

The US government deployed troops in Afghanistan after terrorist group Al-Qaeda made attacks on the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2001. But after 20 years of the deployment of troops, the US decided to withdraw all its forces from Afghanistan within August 31 this year.

Many questions arose following the announcement of US troops’ withdrawal all on a sudden.

It was seen that immediately after the US announcement of the troops' withdrawal, the Afghan forces became weaker morally while the Taliban started to occupy Afghanistan cities one after another.

In such a circumstance, the Afghan government led by Ashraf Ghani became morally week and could understand that he would no more be able to stay in power as China stands by the Taliban and the US withdraws its support from the Ghani-led government.

As a result, the Ghani-led government decided to come to an understanding with the Taliban. Then a meeting was held in last September at Doha in Qatar where representatives from the Taliban and the Ghani-led Afghan government were present. Representatives from the US, Britain, Russia and China also joined the meeting.    

But, the outcome of the meeting was not disclosed.

Meanwhile, China took a chance over Afghanistan. It extended supports to the Taliban. China’s Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met a nine-member delegation of the Taliban on July 28, signaling warming ties when the US-led foreign forces continue their withdrawal from Afghanistan.

At the meeting with the Taliban, the Chinese foreign minister told the Taliban representatives, which included the group’s co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, that Beijing expected it to “play an important role in the process of peaceful reconciliation and reconstruction in Afghanistan”.

When Ashraf Ghani was almost certain that he would no more be able to stay in power, he on August 11 offered the Taliban to share the power of Afghanistan. But, it was too late.

Gani has fled Afghanistan leaving everything behind.

The Taliban already occupied most of the cities in Afghanistan and finally, on Sunday they took over the country. Now, the Taliban has been able to establish its control all over Afghanistan after 20 years.