As Afghanistan Struggles, Russia’s Got a Plan
The Afghan forces are fighting a tough battle against the Taliban with western help. After declaring that the US’ ‘combat mission’ in Afghanistan had ended, Barack Obama is having to revisit his decision based on ground realities. He has decided to send around 300 soldiers of the US Marine Corps back to Afghanistan as advisors, two years after leaving the country as combatants. There are still around 10,000 American troops in Afghanistan, a significantly higher number compared to the 5,000 Obama had envisioned on the campaign trail in an effort to scale back Washington’s ground forces. The security situation in Afghanistan remains precarious. Earlier this week, more than 50 people were killed and 80 wounded in twin bombings near the Afghan parliament in Kabul, for which the Taliban claimed responsibility. Repeated bids to launch peace negotiations with the Taliban have failed and a fierce new fighting season is expected to kick off in the spring. With President Ashraf Ghani and CEO Abdullah Abdullah, at loggerheads, the Afghan government too is facing a serious political crisis.
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Enter Russia with a plan. Amidst its deteriorating ties with the West, it has started warming up to the Taliban. It is now arguing that Afghanistan could become a safe haven for the ISIS, from where it would be able to pose a serious threat to Russian hinterland. China too remains worried about the impact of growing ISIS threat in its Xinjiang province. And both of them have found in Pakistan an important interlocutor who could perhaps manage the Taliban in a way that it would be a force against the ISIS.
Russia’s change of heart comes after helping the Afghan military by supplying helicopters and also agreeing to a supply route for coalition materials through Russia. But that cooperation is a thing of the past as contacts between Moscow and the Taliban have surged in recent years to an extent where the two have also shared intelligence about the ISIS. For Russia, the Taliban is a local nuisance and has given up the idea of global jihad, whereas the ISIS are the global jihadists. Zamir Kabulov, Vladimir Putin’s special representative for Afghanistan, has suggested that in so far as fighting the ISIS is concerned, “the Taliban interest objectively coincides with ours.”