Daily Times

On February 15, 1989, when the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan, Afghanistan turned into a country where the entire system was paralysed. At the same time, the government of the then-president Dr Najibullah was unable to survive for more than three years. As the former president was confined to Kabul because there was no way left for him to flee the country, he took refuge in the office of the UN in Kabul. Meanwhile, almost all of his colleagues surrendered to the former Mujahidin, a group of religious guerrilla fighters.

Immediately after Kabul fell to the hands of the Mujahidin, the world started ignoring Afghanistan; pushing it to complete isolation. Unfortunately, as the mujahidin failed to have unity among their groups they went to fight against each other due to some internal disputes. As a result, they were also unable to form a government that would be acceptable for all sides. Therefore, a destructive civil war engulfed the country, leading to numerous atrocities inflicted on the ordinary Afghan people. Afghanistan became an ungoverned country, where numerous chiefdoms existed in different corners of the country.

In this quagmire, every country, including our neighbours, regional and the far western ones, tried their best to achieve their interests. Therefore, some neighbouring, regional and other countries supported the parties that were involved in the civil war in the country. For example, they provided financial and military assistance to their favourite parties. Interestingly, they ignored the ground realities, where the Afghans, particularly the ordinary people, had been suffering from the brunt of the civil war. As a result, all crimes committed by the warring parties during the civil war were ignored by the world.

Meanwhile, all the warring parties involved in the civil war considered themselves to be fighting for and defending the rights that the other side had violated. As a result of all this belligerence, several thousands of ordinary Afghans were slaughtered, tortured, forced and expelled not only to leave their homes but also their country. The city of Kabul was burnt down and converted to ashes and the residents were unable to walk or travel from one part of the city to another.

According to the UN, by 2022, approximately 97 per cent of the Afghan population will live below the poverty line.

Kabul, which became the battleground of all warring parties involved in the war, was one of the main cities suffering the most from the civil war. As a result, around 60,000 Kabul residents were massacred in a very cruel way. For example, some were beheaded, the gunmen forced pregnant women to give birth in front of their eyes, other gunmen cut the breasts of women and some even put nails in the heads of civilians. This was the picture of Afghanistan isolated by the international community in the 1990s.

As all these atrocities reached their peak, the Taliban, a group of madrassa students, came together in southern Kandahar province in 1994, to set up a movement that could end all atrocities, not only in Kabul but all over Afghanistan. Soon after the formation of the Taliban movement, they were able to capture Kandahar and several southern provinces. They were able to capture Kabul city in September 1996. With the arrival of the Taliban to capital Kabul, most of the foreign fighters that had already been in Afghanistan as a result of the jihad against the Soviet Union in the 1980s also joined the victorious Taliban movement. The involvement of foreign fighters further isolated Afghanistan and therefore only three countries, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates recognised the Taliban regime in the 1990s.

However, if the international community, once again falls under the previous mistake and ignores Afghanistan, it could result in severe repercussions. According to the latest analysis published by the UN, by 2022, approximately 97% of the Afghan population will live below the poverty line. One of the major reasons connected to this is that a large number of people are leaving the country. The people that are leaving the country, are mostly the educated elite that could prove effective for rebuilding Afghanistan. This is a signal that if the international community is going to isolate Afghanistan, the system developed in the last twenty years, is also going to be demolished.

In other spheres of the Afghan society, the mother and child mortality rate is going to increase in this country, if the international community is going to ignore Afghanistan. As a result, it can be predicted that thousands of mothers and children are likely to die every day in different parts of the country. The country is not only going to suffer problems in terms of health, but with the rising number of unemployment, the national economy is also going to shrink.

In the field of education, private universities, where thousands of young people are studying, will be closed. As a result, the Afghan youth are going to try and think about a variety of options. One of the options that they are likely going to choose is that they will try using drugs and commit crimes. As a result, a considerable number of youth are going to become drug addicts and criminals, which can signal an alarm not only to the neighbouring countries but also to the other countries in the world.

Military and economic analysts and observers believe if Afghanistan is going to be isolated once again it is going to be one of the weakest states not only in the region but in the world. This can increase the fear that the Afghan government will be unable to protect the infiltration of foreign extremist fighters. In that case, even though the Taliban are committed that they will fight the international fighters, they will fail to achieve their goal. This can pose important threats to the broader international community, which will also be unable to deal with once things go wrong and it becomes a severe crisis if the world avoids taking the first steps now.

Right now, the Taliban have already declared their rule, so the world must work with them to save the Afghan nation and let it not become the sanctuary of international fighters once again. This is a strong call to the international community that Afghanistan should not be marginalized, which can result in the repetition of history. It means that this country should not once again become a great headache to the world.

In conclusion, I would like to clearly state that as the Taliban have also stated that Afghanistan will no longer be a threat to the world, the international community is supposed to cooperate with the Taliban and prevent any possibility of turning Afghanistan to become a centre of security threats for the broader world. Therefore, the world should not forget Afghanistan once again, where the Afghan people may die due to hunger and fall under the poverty line. The world’s security is dependent on a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan. Therefore, it depends on the world what it wants Afghanistan of the future to look like. Does it want an Afghanistan full of threats or an Afghanistan that is prosperous and peaceful, where different issues can be dealt with in harmony?

Small islands of power will grow, Afghanistan will become a country where the central government will not be able to respond to the fighters which may become a threat to Afghanistan, the region and even the world.

returned to the battlefield and, in their own opinion, worked together to establish an Islamic system. Turned it into a good gathering place for global Islamist fighters, including Osama bin Laden, a prominent figure in the Arab Mujahedeen.

When US embassies in the African countries of Kenya and Tanzania came under attack, the United States blamed al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and called on the Taliban government to hand over Osama. But the Taliban refused to do so, prompting the US to launch cruise missiles into parts of Afghanistan.

Also after the incident of September 11, 2001, and the attack on the New York World Trade Centre, the United States used the pretext of revenge against al-Qaeda as a pretext to invade Afghanistan. After that, a meeting was held in Bonn, Germany, and a new government was established in Afghanistan with the support of the United States and its allies.

But the Taliban never gave up their opposition to the new US-backed government and spared no effort to regain power and oust the US from Afghanistan.

During 20 years of US-backed military and financial support, the Afghan government was having good economic growth, the civilian, military, educational and economic institutions in Afghanistan, which were destroyed, were revived, and thousands of boys and girls returned to Schools and universities. hundreds of thousands were employed in the public and private sector, the modern system of governance came to Afghanistan and Afghanistan emerged from global isolation.

In these twenty years, Afghanistan has had a better administrative system, military facilities, thousands of young people with modern administrative systems and advanced technology, and so on. Afghanistan has made significant progress.

However, this new system had its problems, all of which are beyond the power of these lines. Widespread corruption put the Afghan government at the top of the list of corrupt countries in the world, and anyone could see Afghanistan as a good place to make money.

That is why when the Taliban’s attacks intensified and the support of foreign countries diminished, the corrupt people of the government and the army who were fighting for salary were no longer able to repel the Taliban’s attacks and had no choice but to surrender to the Taliban. The entire system and government surrendered to the Taliban.

After the Taliban took power, the entire Afghan system was shut down, the government was shut down, all education departments were vacated, and hundreds of thousands of educated Afghans familiar with the modern administrative abilities fled or waited to flee.

The writer is a Kabul-based writer and Journalist. He tweets @Arazaqhabibi.