Taliban downplays new US strategy on Afghanistan, steps up attacks: observers

Contrary to expectations, the Taliban outfit fighting government forces to regain power and re-impose its iron-hand rule in Afghanistan has downplayed the new US strategy and pushed for more violence to drive out the US-led coalition forces stationed in the war-ravaged country.

First the armed militant group dismissed the US’s new Afghanistan strategy as warmongering and vowed to continue their jihad holy war. They then launched a series of deadly offensives in Kabul and other cities last week, killing more than 100 people and injuring more than 200 others.

In his strategy on Afghanistan announced in August, US President Donald Trump promised to increase troop numbers in the insurgencyplagued country. He dubbed the Taliban a terrorist group and vowed to target militants and their supporters. Taliban militants have increased activities since the unveiling of the new strategy. Just over the past week, they attacked high-profile targets including police and army bases in the fortified capital city as well as in Ghazni and Kandahar provinces.

In the latest waves of deadly offensives, Taliban militants organized a suicide attack on Saturday on a bus for the national military college – Marshal Fahim Military Academy in Kabul – killing at least 15 cadets and injuring four others.

The Taliban outfit that claimed responsibility for the attack had earlier stormed a police headquarters in eastern Paktia’s provincial capital Gardez on Tuesday and a military camp in Maiwand district of the southern Kandahar province on Thursday, leaving scores of security personnel dead.

Afghan observers believe that increasing Taliban activities and their attacks on highprofile targets in the wake of Washington’s new strategy demonstrates the armed outfit’s resolve. “In fact, the recent increase in deadly Taliban attacks reveals the armed group’s strength in the war against the Afghan government and USled coalition forces stationed in Afghanistan,” political analyst Khan Mohammad Daneshjo told Xinhua. Daneshjo, editorin-chief of the weekly Abbadi, also believed that the “Taliban militants and their supporters have downplayed the new US strategy on Afghanistan by escalating deadly attacks and given the message that they have the ability to continue the war.”

Nazari Pariani, editor-inchief of the Daily Mandegar, said “Taliban fighters by increasing attacks want to demonstrate their power and give the message that the group is capable of attacking any target at any time if it wants.”

Nevertheless, he was of the view that “poor management of the security apparatus and disharmony among those at the helm of affairs also paved the way for militants” to conduct lethal attacks elsewhere in the country.