Taliban Seek Friendly U.S. Ties as Challenges Mount After War
Taliban Call for Good Ties With U.S. After 20-Year War Ends
(Bloomberg) -- The Taliban called for friendly ties with the U.S. and indicated they were close to announcing details of a new government just hours after the last American soldiers flew out of Kabul to end 20 years of war.
“The Islamic Emirate wants a good and diplomatic relationship with the Americans,” Zabihullah Mujahed, the Taliban’s main spokesman, told reporters on Tuesday from the Hamid Karzai International Airport, which was the last place under American control.
Key Taliban leaders took a symbolic victory lap, walking across the tarmac to mark their win. That’s even as the militant group faces a host of fresh challenges to cement its control on the country.
Mujahed added later that a three-day meeting of the group’s Leadership Council had taken place under the guidance of their top spiritual leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, in the southern city of Kandahar, the group’s stronghold.
“A number of decisions were taken regarding the protection of public treasury goods and infrastructure and good treatment of the people and providing facilities to them,” Mujahed said in a text message to reporters. “Consultations were held on the formation of a new Islamic government and cabinet in the country.”
The U.S. officially ended its longest war around midnight Monday Afghan time, a mission that began soon after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The Taliban’s swift advance to Kabul prompted a rushed U.S. withdrawal of more than 123,000 people since Aug. 14, which was marred by a suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members and more than 169 Afghans.
Yet despite the jubilant mood among Taliban leaders, now the hard part of governing begins. They must put in place a functioning government, figure out how to get the airport running, stem rising prices of essential goods, stave off an economic crisis after the U.S. cut off aid and avoid a civil war with both ethnic-based armies and a local branch of the Islamic State.
On Tuesday, normalcy appeared to be returning to Kabul. Restaurants and pharmacies reopened, with large crowds appearing in markets and traffic jams clogging the roads in the capital. Armed Taliban guards wearing U.S. gear patrolled in pickup trucks.
While banks and ATMs have reopened, citizens are struggling to get access to their money. Prices of essential food and medicines have jumped by as much as 50% over the last few weeks, Kabul residents said. And flights over the country have stopped, with the U.S. withdrawal leaving air-traffic control services in Kabul unmanned.
Qasim Mohseni, a medicine retailer, called on the Taliban to control prices of food and medicine even as he welcomed the new leaders.
“Since the Taliban came, the security looks good so far but the biggest worry and problem for people is the economy and lack of jobs and the markets prices have also increased,” he said by phone from Kabul. “What did the U.S. or its installed government do to Afghanistan? Tell me a good thing about them. Nothing. It was a corrupt government -- all its rulers and leaders were made corrupt by the U.S.’s money.”
Fear Spreading
Still, fear spread among those who were part of the former government even though the Taliban declared a general amnesty. One former government employee, who asked not to be identified, said he had been in hiding for two weeks because the militants were looking for him. He said certain Taliban militants had visited his home, and one of his colleagues had been killed.
The Taliban have adopted a more moderate tone since their military victory -- promising that women could work and go to school within the bounds of Shariah Law, as well as amnesty for all their former Afghan foes and good ties with the international community. The Biden administration has said U.S. relations with the group is now contingent on its behavior.
For the Taliban, lots of money is at stake: The International Monetary Fund on Aug. 19 cut off the group from using fund reserve assets just days before the nation was set to receive almost $500 million. One potential source of funds is China, which on Tuesday called on the world to help out the Taliban.
“China hopes that the international community should enhance collaboration and provide Afghanistan with necessary economic, livelihood and humanitarian assistance to help the country achieve peace and reconstruction,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Wang Wenbin said Tuesday in Beijing. He was responding to a question on whether Beijing would support the IMF allowing the Taliban government to access assets.
Biden Address
President Joe Biden, who said he will address the nation on the withdrawal on Tuesday afternoon Washington time, said the Taliban who now rule Afghanistan have “made commitments on safe passage and the world will hold them to their commitments.”
The war led to the deaths of about 2,400 Americans, even more employees of American contractors and tens of thousands of Afghans, as well as about $1 trillion in U.S. spending since the conflict began. It dragged on so long that a huge slice of Afghanistan’s population has lived their entire lives under its shadow, while the U.S. troops who were killed last week were mostly infants when New York’s Twin Towers were brought down.
On Monday Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. is moving its Afghanistan consular work to Doha, Qatar, which had been the site of talks with the Taliban over the last two years. He said U.S. humanitarian assistance to Afghans would continue but any engagement with the Taliban would be motivated solely by U.S. national interests.
Blinken didn’t say how the U.S. and allies -- bolstered by a United Nations Security Council resolution approved Monday -- would exert pressure on the Taliban. But earlier in the day White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said “we have an enormous amount of leverage, including access to the global marketplace,” suggesting the use of existing and perhaps new economic sanctions against the Taliban if they don’t cooperate.
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