Editorial

‘Deadliest’ week

The spoilers, however, seem to have hit the target.

Editorial June 26, 2020

The past week witnessed an unprecedented violence in Afghanistan. At least 291 Afghan security personnel were killed and 550 wounded in no less than 422 attacks in 32 provinces of Afghanistan during the week ending June 21, making it the “deadliest” week in nearly two decades of war in the country, according to the Afghan government. The violence continued into the ongoing week with simultaneous raids on one army and two police checkpoints in Kunduz province on Monday in which eight members of Afghan security forces were killed. In a more significant of the attacks, also coming on Monday, gunmen shot dead two prosecutors and three other employees of the attorney general’s office.

That the same law office had been working on a prisoner exchange — a requirement for the Taliban and Kabul to go ahead with peace talks — does show that peace spoilers are at work in Afghanistan yet again — this time with a bitterly nefarious sense of purpose. The attack, thus, drew condemnation from US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad — who led negotiations with the Taliban on behalf of Washington ahead of the February 29^th peace deal in Doha between the two sides. In a tweet, Khalilzad urged the Taliban and Kabul “not [to] be deterred, and push forward to take the steps necessary to reach intra-Afghan negotiation” warning the two sides that “spoilers are trying to disrupt and delay” the peace process.

The spoilers, however, seem to have hit the target. To Kabul, no one but the Taliban are to blame for the past week’s killing of 291 security personnel and the attacks on Monday, with President Ashraf Ghani saying that the violence “is running against the spirit of commitment for peace”. The Taliban, on the other hand, only accepted carrying out “some attacks last week” but “mostly in defence”, and rejected the latest government figures on casualties.

The two sides, however, need to realise that the Doha deal has created a rare opportunity for peace in Afghanistan which must not be squandered at any cost.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 26^th, 2020.

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