Afghanistan official warns against hasty US retreat
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN >> Afghanistan’s Interior Minister Masoud Andarabi said Saturday that Afghan security forces can hold their ground even if U.S. troops withdraw, challenging a warning from the United States predicting a withdrawal would yield quick territorial gains to the Taliban.
Andarabi’s comments in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press were the first government reaction to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s warning issued in a sharply worded letter to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani last weekend.
In the letter pressing Ghani to step up efforts to make peace with the Taliban, Blinken said, “I am concerned the security situation will worsen and that the Taliban could make rapid territorial gains” after the American military withdraws.
Andarabi said Afghanistan’s National Security Forces could hold territory, but would likely endure heavy losses trying to hold remote checkpoints
without U.S. air support.
“The Afghan security forces are fully capable of defending the capital and the cities and the territories that we are present in right now,” he said. “We think that the Afghan security forces this year have proven to the Taliban that they will not be able to gain territory.”
While the Taliban have not attacked U.S. or NATO forces as a condition of the agreement, the Afghan National Security forces have faced some blistering assaults.
Interviewed at the heavily fortified Interior Ministry, Andarabi also repeated his government’s warning against a hasty U.S. retreat from the war-ravaged country, saying that the Taliban’s ties to al-Qaida remain intact and that a swift pullout would worsen global counterterrorism efforts.
He said that Afghan National Security Forces backed by U.S. assistance have so far put a squeeze on terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan, including the local Islamic State affiliate.
UNITED NATIONS >> The U.N. Security Council urged Somalia’s government on Friday to organize elections “without delay” in a resolution that stressed the pressing threat to the country’s security from al-Shabab and armed opposition groups.
The resolution, which was adopted unanimously, authorized the African Union to maintain its nearly 20,000-strong force in Somalia until the end of the year with a mandate to reduce the threat from the extremist groups to enable “a stable, federal, sovereign and united Somalia.”
The U.N.’s most powerful body said its objective is to transfer security to Somali authorities, with the aim of Somalia taking the lead in 2021, and achieving full responsibility by the end of 2023.
It emphasizes the importance of building the capacity of Somali forces and institutions so they are able to manage current and future threats, and authorizes the AU force, known as AMISOM, to support the transfer of its security responsibilities to the government.
Pressure
The resolution’s adoption came amid growing pressure on Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed after scheduled elections on Feb. 8 failed to take place because of the lack of agreement on how the vote should be carried out. Two regional states have said they would not take part without a deal.
Critics accuse Mohamed, who is seeking a second four-year term, of delaying the election to extend his current mandate. The president has blamed unnamed foreign interventions.
The Security Council expressed concern at the delays in finalizing arrangements for elections this year. It urged the federal government and regional states “to organize free, fair, credible and inclusive elections” in line with a Sept. 17, 2020, agreement.
Decades of chaos
Three decades of chaos, from warlords to al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabab to the emergence of an Islamic State-linked group, have ripped apart the country that only in the past few years has begun to find its footing.
The Security Council welcomed “progress achieved so far” but also stressed the immediate threat from al-Shabab and other extremist groups. It condemned their attacks in Somalia and beyond “in the strongest possible terms.”