Taliban, US give peace a chance

DOHA: After nearly two decades of conflict that has ravaged Afghanistan, the United States and the Taliban have signed an accord Washington hopes will end its longest war.

The pact signed in Doha would see the US and foreign partner forces pull all their troops from Afghanistan within 14 months, provided the Taliban sticks to pledges to open a dialogue with the Western-backed Kabul government and push back against jihadist groups including Al-Qaeda.

President Donald Trump said US troops would start withdrawing from Afghanistan immediately.

“The other side’s tired of war. Everybody is tired of war. (It has) been a particularly long and gruesome one,” he said.

“We’ve had tremendous success in Afghanistan in the killing of terrorists, but it’s time, after all these years, to go and to bring our people back home.”

Supporters of the deal, which was signed after more than a year of fractious talks, say it marks a critical first step toward peace. But many Afghans fear it amounts to little more than a dressed-up surrender that will ultimately see the Taliban return to power.

“There is no doubt we have won the war … This (is) why they are signing a peace treaty,” chief Taliban negotiator Abbas Stanikzai said.

Months of speculation about the deal culminated in a plush conference room in the Qatari capital, when Taliban fighter- turned- deal- maker Mullah Baradar signed the accord along with Washington’s chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad. The pair then shook hands, as people in the room shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”).

At the signing, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alluded to uncertainty over the deal.

“Victory for Afghans will only be achieved when they can live in peace and prosper,” he said.

The Taliban swept to power in 1996 with a hardline interpretation of Islamic sharia law, banning women from working, closing girls’ schools, and forbidding music and other entertainment.

Since the US-led invasion that ousted them after the September 11, 2001, attacks, the US has spent more than $1 trillion on fighting and rebuilding in the country.

About 2400 US soldiers have been killed, along with tens of thousands of Afghan troops, civilians and Taliban fighters.

The Doha accord left many Afghans fretting that their relatively recent freedoms under the country’s new constitution may be under threat.

Even the requirement for a “permanent and comprehensive ceasefire” was listed only as an agenda item — not a precondition — for future talks between Kabul and the Taliban, slated to begin on March 10 in Oslo. The Afghan government was excluded from direct US-Taliban talks.

“Today is a dark day, and as I was watching the deal being signed, I had this bad feeling that it would result in their return to power rather than in peace,” Afghan activist Zahra Hussaini, 28, said.

In Kabul, groups gathered in cafes to watch the signing, but reaction was muted.

The signing followed a week-long partial truce to build confidence between the warring parties and show that the Taliban could control their fighters. The US, which currently has between 12,000 and 13,000 troops in Afghanistan, will draw numbers down to 8600 within 135 days.

The two sides also agreed to swap thousands of prisoners.