UNSC Indicates Taliban No Longer Global Outcast

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Aug 29: Even as the United States said it was at the last leg of pull out from Afghanistan sticking to its August 31 deadline apprehending another high terror attack at the Kabul airport soon, the United Nations Security Council, of which India currently is the chairman, gave indications that the international community no longer treated the Taliban as global outcast.

The UNSC on Saturday dropped the Taliban reference from a paragraph in its statement on terrorist attacks near Kabul airport that called on Afghan groups not to support terrorists “operating on the territory of any other country”.

The reference to the Taliban was omitted indicating that the Taliban was perhaps being seen as a state actor by the UNSC members, including India. Essentially, this is the first signal by the international community that the Taliban may no longer be a global outcaste. India, which assumed the rotating Presidency of the UNSC for the month of August, signed off on the statement and issued it in its capacity as the chair for this month.

On August 16, a day after Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, the Permanent Representative of India at the UN, T S Tirumurti, issued a statement on behalf of the UNSC, which included this para: “The members of the Security Council reaffirmed the importance of combating terrorism in Afghanistan to ensure the territory of Afghanistan should not be used to threaten or attack any country, and that neither the Taliban nor any other Afghan group or individual should support terrorists operating on the territory of any other country.”

On August 27, a day after the bombing outside the Kabul airport in which nearly 200 people including 13 US soldiers were killed, Tirumurti — again as President of UNSC, and on behalf of the Council — issued a statement that condemned the “deplorable attacks.” However, the August 16 para was reproduced in this statement with one telling change: “The members of the Security Council reiterated the importance of combating terrorism in Afghanistan to ensure the territory of Afghanistan should not be used to threaten or attack any country, and that no Afghan group or individual should support terrorists operating on the territory of any country.”

Syed Akbaruddin, India’s permanent representative at the UN till April last year, pointed out the difference in the two statements and said “the ‘T’ word is gone.”

Officials said the decision to sign off on the statement has been taken in view of changing “ground realities”. The Taliban has been responsible for much of the evacuation of foreigners and Afghans-at-risk.

While the US says it has evacuated more than 1 lakh people since August 15, the entire Indian Embassy was evacuated on August 17 — a day after the first UNSC statement was issued.

According to data shared by the government, 565 people have been evacuated so far: 175 Embassy personnel, 263 other Indian nationals, 112 Afghan nationals including Hindus and Sikhs, and 15 third-country nationals. India on Friday said that the exact number of its citizens remaining in war-torn Afghanistan was unknown.

This, officials here believe, along with the safe passage to those being airlifted would not have been possible had the Taliban not cooperated. Officials said while India hasn’t engaged with the Taliban in the manner as other UNSC members have, signing off on this statement is a signal that opens up the possibility to engage with the hardline group.

The August 27 statement had strong words on terror but did not hold the Taliban accountable. “The attacks, which were claimed by Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), an entity affiliated with Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh), resulted in the death and injuries of dozens of civilians, including children, and military personnel,” the statement said. It added: “The members of the Security Council reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security. Deliberately targeting civilians and personnel assisting in the evacuation of civilians is especially abhorrent and must be condemned.”

Sources said the statement puts India’s concerns on terrorism on the frontburner: “The members of the Security Council underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice. They urged all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, to cooperate actively with all relevant authorities in this regard.”

The US, meanwhile, after asserting that it might continue evacuation even beyond the August 31 deadline ignoring the Taliban’s threat of “consequences” in case of any unilateral extension, has come down to agree to stick to the deadline after the devastating twin suicide blasts outside the Kabul airport in which it suffered one of the worst casualties during the its 20 years of Afghan war.

“U.S. forces are in the final phase of leaving Kabul, ending two decades of involvement in Afghanistan, and just over 1,000 civilians at the airport remain to be flown out before troops withdraw,” a Western security official said on Sunday. “But a date and time for the end of the operation was yet to be decided,” he added. The statement came after the US President Joe Biden warned that another terrorist attack on the Kabul airport is “highly likely” in the next 24 to 36 hours.

Biden , however, insisted that a retaliatory drone strike he ordered to be carried out against the Islamic State group’s affiliate in Afghanistan would not be his “last” response to the group for carrying out a deadly attack against U.S. troops and Afghan civilians near the Kabul airport.

Biden said in a statement on Saturday that he discussed the strike with top military commanders, who briefed him on the ongoing evacuation of Afghans and U.S. citizens from the airport, which is set to wind down on August 31. The President said commanders told him that another attack “is highly likely in the next 24-36 hours.” Two IS members were killed and another was wounded in the drone strike in the early hours of Saturday in eastern Afghanistan.

The country’s new Taliban rulers are prepared to take control of the airport, said an official from the hardline Islamist movement that has swept across Afghanistan, crushing the U.S. backed government.

The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended Britain’s airlift out of Kabul on Sunday and praised the troops for their mission after criticism grew that the government had been “asleep on watch” in Afghanistan. Britain’s last military flight left Kabul late on Saturday ending a chaotic two weeks in which soldiers helped to evacuate more than 15,000 people from the crowds who descended on the capital’s airport, desperate to flee the Taliban. Johnson said Britain would not have wished to leave Afghanistan in this manner following its near 20-year presence there, but he said the armed forces should be proud of their achievements none the less. “I thank everyone involved, and I believe they can be very proud of what they’ve done,” he said in a video online.

A band of veteran Afghan leaders, including two regional strongmen, are angling for talks with the Taliban and plan to meet within weeks to form a new front for holding negotiations on the country’s next government, a member of a group said.

Khalid Noor, son of Atta Mohammad Noor, the once-powerful governor of northern Afghanistan’s Balkh province, said the group comprised of veteran ethnic Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostum and others are opposed to the Taliban’s takeover.

“We prefer to negotiate collectively, because it is not that the problem of Afghanistan will be solved just by one of us,” Khalid Noor told the media from an undisclosed location.

Meanwhile, the Venice International Film Festival has invited Afghan filmmakers Sahraa Karimi and Sahra Mani to talk about the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan with “particular attention to the situation of filmmakers and artists” since the hardline religious group seized control of the country.

The 78th edition of the movie gala, also called La Biennale di Venezia, will be held on the Lido from September 1 to 11. According to Biennale’s official website, the panel will take place on September 4.

The Taliban forces sealed off Kabul’s airport on Saturday to most Afghans hoping for evacuation, as the US and its allies were ending a chaotic airlift that will end their troops’ two decades in Afghanistan.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed on Saturday that the group’s forces were holding some positions within the airport and were ready to peacefully take control of it as American forces flew out. But Pentagon spokesman John Kirby denied the claim.

The Taliban did deploy extra forces outside of the airport to prevent large crowds from gathering in the wake of Thursday’s bombing. New layers of checkpoints sprang up on roads leading to the airport, some manned by uniformed Taliban fighters with Humvees and night-vision goggles captured from Afghan security forces. Areas where the crowds had gathered over the past two weeks in the hopes of fleeing the country were largely empty.

The Taliban said on Saturday they were preparing a new cabinet as the U.S. evacuation nears its end and they expected that sharp currency falls and economic turmoil following their takeover of Kabul two weeks ago would subside.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the movement’s main spokesman, made the comments. He condemned an overnight US drone strike against Islamic State militants following Thursday’s suicide attack near the airport as a “clear attack on Afghan territory.” But he appealed to the US and other Western nations to maintain diplomatic relations after their withdrawal, which he expected would be completed “very soon.”