Daily Times

Till late Friday evening the Afghan forces, along with NATO troops and ‘advisers’, were locked in an intense battle with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan’s strategic Sangin district after retaking some government buildings from the armed group, officials said. At least 20 civilians have been killed during the past 24 hours of fighting. The fight for control of the town in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province has raged on for days, with both sides claiming to have the upper hand. While not confirming that they had lost control of police headquarters, a Taliban spokesman acknowledged that the special Afghan troops had won some ground in Sangin. This month marks a year since the US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan transitioned into an Afghan-led operation, with allied nations assisting in training local forces.The battle for Sangin came as a Taliban suicide bomber killed six American NATO soldiers at Bagram airport near Kabul on Monday. This was the most deadly attack on NATO troops since August. In September, the Taliban briefly overran the northern city of Kunduz in one of their biggest victories in 14 years of war.

The province of Helmand produces opium and heroin worth five billion dollars per year and 70 percent of this money goes to the present government administration, which is corrupt to the core and an imperialist stooge.The revulsion and frustration of government troops is burgeoning following disastrous military operations that locals say wrought unwarranted destruction. These rank-and-file soldiers have not been paid wages for months and they complain of very bad food while the officer caste has five-star meals. Their morale is very low. Some officers are accused of selling weapons to the Taliban. Defections to the Taliban and now also Islamic State(IS) affiliates are rising rapidly amongst the so-called Afghan national army. The strategy of winning hearts and minds — once trumpeted by foreign forces — has ended up in the ‘tormenting of hearts and minds’ of the Afghans.A former major general of the British army, Jonathan Shaw, said that the problem NATO forces faced in Helmand was deeper than that of just equipment or resources. “I think it shows the limitations of military intervention… what is the long-term plan? We have got the clocks; they have got the time. Anything we impose is transient… We probably expected a bit much of them.”

This Taliban offensive was launched just weeks after the Heart of Asia Conference regarding the stabilisation of Afghanistan was held in Islamabad. The presence of foreign ministers from 10 countries in Islamabad to attend the meeting — including delegates from China and India — testified to the event’s importance in regional politics. Pakistan enjoys a unique role in the search for an Afghan settlement and its cooperation is crucial due to its links with the Taliban, and the fact that — in spite of its denials — the state gives covert logistical support to and retains a certain level of control over some of the most vicious outfits. Behind the veil of diplomatic smiles and hypocritical gestures of wily diplomacy, however, all these powers are in fact pouncing upon Afghanistan like vultures grabbing its resources. This new offensive in Helmand, which places the Taliban very near Pakistan’s territory, will inevitably create new rifts and rows between the Pakistani deep state and the regime of Ashraf Ghani. One half of the national unity government is quite openly opposed to the other half`s preference for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban and outreach to Pakistan. Perhaps the visit of Pakistan’s military chief on December 27 is to remedy those fears.

The government is desperately trying to cling on to power and the Taliban are regrouping to take the initiative by capturing territory at this early stage. The Taliban rightly anticipate that after the withdrawal of imperialist forces they will be faced with fierce resistance from the forces of ordinary Afghans and the alibi of fighting the foreign invader in Afghanistan will not be there any more. There are clear signs of ordinary Afghans coming out for the first time to fight for their basic rights and to put an end to the brutalities of the vicious Taliban and the devastations wrought by the imperialist invaders.

Pakistani state experts and strategists, with events unfolding in Helmand, will try to continue pursuing the twin approach of keeping the lines of communication with Kabul open while nudging the Taliban to the negotiating table, maintaining their ‘strategic depth’ doctrine. Afghanistan has been in turbulence for centuries with invasions, wars, destruction and the devastation of the great games played there by imperialists. The masses have suffered for generations on both sides of the Durand Line drawn by the British imperialists in 1893. The only short period where the masses were beginning to have some respite was during the Saur Revolution of 1978. But it was the US imperialists along with the Pakistani state, the Saudis and other Arab monarchies who inflicted a reactionary insurgency upon Afghanistan to crush the revolution that had overthrown capitalism and landlordism, and to stop its spread in the whole region. The radical reforms that were beginning to uplift and transform the lives of the oppressed were having a deep impact, especially amongst the youth and the toilers in central Asia, Iran and Pakistan.

The Taliban and other fundamentalist monsters were the products of this counter-revolutionary strategy. Now they are fighting for the huge swathes of black money generated through the massive drug smuggling racket and other criminal activity. Their mentors created this financial resource to fund the counter-revolution in Afghanistan. The imperialists and their toady regional despots are responsible for this mess and the destruction of one of the richest cultures in Asia. Rabid bigots in the form of the Taliban have turned into Frankenstein’s monsters attacking their own masters/creators. After 15 years of imperialist occupation and regimes that have had the sanctity of UN sponsorship, nothing has improved for the ordinary people, and the oppression of women and the human rights record, decried so loudly by western commentators, have only worsened. Capitalism can in no way develop upon or end primitiveness in Afghanistan. This will only intensify with the unravelling of this conflict and the crisis in the present socio-economic system. However, this conflagration and crisis engulfs the whole region, especially the Pashtuns. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, the people are tied together in bonds of history, culture, economy and now war. There have been militant demonstrations of the youth and workers in Kabul and other cities in recent weeks. These were about issues of price hikes, unemployment and other socio-economic demands of the masses. It shows another oft-concealed aspect of war-torn Afghanistan. Sharp turns and sudden changes in the region can explode in a revolutionary upheaval in the coming period across imperialist imposed frontiers.

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and international secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at lalkhan1956@gmail.com