– Vinayak Barot
New Delhi: The Taliban on Friday warned the US government against defying a May 1 deadline for the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan, and wowed to restore Islamic rule in the restive country.
The Taliban may increase attacks on Afghanistan to challenge Washington, reports said.
The Taliban leaders in Moscow issued the warning a day after meeting with senior Afghan government negotiators and international observers to try to jumpstart a stalled peace process to end Afghanistan’s decades of war.
Suhail Shaheen, a member of the Taliban negotiation team, said “The US and NATO should go. Staying beyond May 1 would breach the deal, after that it will be a kind of violation of the agreement. That violation would not be from our side. Their violation will get reaction.”
Although he did not specify the kind of reaction. As per the agreement they signed in February 2020, the Taliban have not attacked the US or NATO forces so far, even as unclaimed bombings and targeted killings have spiked in recent months.
On withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday said that “We are reviewing an agreement the Taliban signed with the Trump administration. The May 1 deadline could happen, but it is tough and if it is extended it will not be by a lot longer.”
According to international experts “The Taliban is a nationalist jihadist group, that accepts the framework of the Afghan nation-state. The Taliban group is extremely supportive of Islamism in Afghanistan.”
“The Afghanistan government may fall weak against the Taliban after the withdrawal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan. An aggressive Taliban may be the reason for internal violence in Afghanistan,” experts believe.
Instead of being a safe place for learning, schools in Afghanistan are increasingly turned into military, ideological, and political battlefields.