A nightmare future scenario in which the Pakistan-backed Taliban take over Afghanistan following next year’s US military withdrawal is acknowledged by a top security expert.
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But Amrullah Saleh, head of the Afghan intelligence service until 2010, has also told The Tribune in an exclusive interview that a Taliban takeover is not a foregone conclusion because of regional and international changes, the strength of the new Afghan army and the Afghan public’s awareness of how the Taliban functions.
Over a cup of tea at his home in central Kabul, currently set up as a giant fortress city bristling with armed patrols and bomb-proof shelters against suicide bombers, Saleh argues that the Americans should and must withdraw as planned. “We can fight, Afghanistan can fight, Afghanistan can hold,” he says.
The threat to the country’s stability will arise if next year’s planned national elections are “manipulated”, testing the loyalty of the army - the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) - and providing fresh opportunities for the Taliban and their Pakistani backers to exploit the country’s social and political divisions.
“The problem is not if the NATO stays or goes, no, the Afghans will be able to defend their country,” Saleh explains. “The Taliban will not be able to march in and take over. It’s not possible, no. We are not looking at parallels with Vietnam. The ANSF strength is 350,000.
“The good scenario is that we have fairly good elections, there is a transfer of power, Americans withdraw but they stick to their commitment of helping the ANSF strategically and indefinitely.”
A third scenario, what Saleh underlines as nightmare, envisages bad elections with unacceptable results and the Americans staying to protect an illegitimate president.
Back in 1997, Saleh was appointed by legendary Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud to liase with non- governmental organisations and foreign intelligence agencies. At the time, the anti-Taliban forces represented by the Northern Alliance had been pushed into a tiny corner of the country, while the Taliban flourished, thanks to the political and economic backing of Saudi Arabia and the West.
By 1999, India, Russia and Iran had come together to support the anti-Taliban forces headed by Massoud. After Massoud’s assassination and the fall of the Taliban regime, Saleh in 2004 was appointed the national security chief by President Hamid Karzai. One of his biggest intelligence coups in 2005 was his role in identifying international terrorist Osama bin Laden as living in a settled part of Pakistan.
But any Taliban hopes of making further progress will come up against the determination and might of the ANSF. “Nightmares never come true,” Saleh repeats. “I say the ANSF will fight.”
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