Afghan Resistance Leaders See ‘No Option’ but War

Foreign Policy ^ | SEPTEMBER 29, 2022 | Lynne O’Donnell

[MinorityRepublican]

Afghanistan is now perhaps the most dangerous country in the world, controlled by Taliban terrorists who are sheltering dozens of anti-Western jihadi groups while torturing, raping, starving, and killing their Afghan opponents. Yet the one person who could make a credible claim to be the leader of an opposition group to overthrow the Taliban has been unable to draw international support or unite fellow Afghans behind him.

Ahmad Massoud, the 33-year-old son of an anti-Taliban war hero, leads the National Resistance Front (NRF), which is concentrated in the Panjshir Valley, a lush and mountainous province close to the capital, Kabul, where the Taliban have been struggling to dislodge them in the year since they took control of Afghanistan. The NRF is one of at least 22 resistance groups the United Nations says have emerged since the Taliban’s takeover last year. A few thousand men are fighting in disparate groups, taking and holding territory in a dozen provinces mainly across the north, where anti-Taliban sentiment is strongest. But they’ve yet to form a cohesive opposition to the Taliban, who have an increasingly tenuous hold on power as factional feuds emerge and international legitimacy remains elusive.

Not that the Afghan resistance is getting any help from Washington. The Biden administration has insisted it will not support an armed opposition and seems to regard the Taliban—led by dozens of sanctioned terrorists—as partners in counterterrorism rather than part of the problem.

Despite repeated warnings of the Taliban’s long-standing relationship with al Qaeda and its affiliates, the world awoke to the danger, Massoud said, when a U.S. drone killed al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a Kabul villa associated with Taliban deputy leader and interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani.

“Now the world is paying attention,” Massoud told Foreign Policy during a recent trip to Europe.

[jarwulf]

I’m sure there are plenty of jihad supporters there but aside from them I have zero ill will toward the general population that just wants to live their life the way they want. We think they’re weird with their society of chopped hands for shoplifting and multiple wives. They think we’re weird with our thousands of sjw rules, transgender bathrooms and woke indoctrination. How would you like it if some foreign army busted into your home and killed to impose a bizarre ideology to remake your entire society with the weak excuse that some far off politician is sheltering a criminal? They love the ‘oppression’ the media is crying over. They want the austere theocratic rule and wrapping their women in carpets (even the women love being wrapped in carpets) who are we to tell them how they should live?

[ridesthemiles]

Tribes VS Tribes

[Delta 21]

Or Chicago.

[Wuli]

In truth, Afghanistan has been in civil war during and since the Soviets were kicked out. There was only one “unity of mind” during the Soviet occupation - get the Soviets out. Beyond that the Afghans were at extreme divisions that remain in play today, as they did all through the U.S. engagement there.