Afghanistan – ISIS K
Is there any American plan B?
ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for the bloody Kabul airport bombings. For the first time, the ISIS-K had surfaced in eastern Afghanistan in late 2014 and fought the then-Afghan government and even the “Taliban.” It had described Taliban as infidels.
Despite that the US used the “mother of all bombs” on the hideouts of ISIS-K, the organisation has re-emerged and struck the Kabul Airport which was fortified by the US Army.
It caused embarrassment and huge criticism at home for President Joe Biden because of the sudden withdrawal without a clear plan even to secure American citizens.
It seems that the sudden US withdrawal has enabled ISIS-K to gain a foothold in Afghanistan. This may become a launching pad for major extremist terrorist attacks in the future, targeting inside and outside Afghanistan. This is because the organisation has presence also across the borders and takes advantage of wars and internal fighting.
The war on Afghanistan was one of the unsuccessful wars which America fought in the region before Iraq and Libya. The US has intervened in these countries with the slogan that it would establish democratic system in these two countries. The reality is that these countries became more chaotic and troubled than they were before. It shows that there was strategic mistake committed by the US in intervening without a plan and withdrawing without a blueprint, as happened in all these three cases.
(by Dr. Jebril Elabidi in Asharq Al Awsat)
The Washington Post has published an opinion piece with the headline that the ‘ISIS chief was a prison informer in Iraq for US’. The relations between the American defence ministry and ISIS have already been revealed by the American and Arab media. During G7 summit on August 24, less than 48 hours before the explosion at the Kabul Airport, the US president Joe Biden emphasised on the importance of the withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of the month on the pretext that the ISIS-K would attack NATO forces. The president was reading the close future with amazing accuracy!
Based on these two points, it is easy to realise that America, after failing in its long war in Afghanistan, has decided to withdraw its failed military forces and resort to implementing its alternative strategy as plan B.
It has been reported that the CIA chief carried out a covert visit to Kabul and met Mullah Baradar to persuade him to cooperate with the US to fight the ISIS-K. Former head of the British military forces, General Richard insisted twice in BBC’s Newsnight programme on August 26, that the US needed to implement this new policy because there is no other choice.
The US cannot accept military defeat and humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan and leave it to strengthen the rival China-Iran-Russia axis. It has applied the same policy in Vietnam. After its failure there in 1975, it cooperated with Vietnam against China.
(by Prof. Kamal Majeed in Rai Alyoum)
Compiled and Translated by Faizul Haque