Afghanistan’s president has issued a call to arms to the Afghan people, urging them to rise up against the Taliban and fight alongside government troops to defend the nation from the Islamist onslaught.
Speaking in parliament as fighting raged in key cities, Ashraf Ghani called for a “national uprising” against a Taliban offensive that has seen swathes of Afghanistan fall to the insurgents in recent weeks.
Warning that “the fate of peace will be determined on the battlefield”, Ghani set out a six-month security plan to take back the initiative, after a string of demoralising defeats.
Government forces have buckled and fallen back to major cities in the face of the Taliban assaults, and Ghani urged the Afghan people to fight back, before their country was overrun. Heavy fighting is under way around the western city of Herat and inside the southern city if Lashkar Gah.
“We have done our best and are still doing our best to save our nation from these brutal killers of humanity . . . Our security plan is clear . . . we have made all the preparations to put an end to this wave of sedition in the next six months and reach a state of stability,” Ghani said. “An important element of this plan is the mobilisation of the people alongside our security and defence forces.”
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Invoking Islamic scripture, Ghani said the battle against the Taliban was a holy war and it was the duty of all Afghans to rise up against the insurgents.
“Our aspiration was to achieve lasting and just peace from the beginning and we still have that aspiration [but] this war has been imposed on us . . . It is God’s command that if someone is an aggressor and does not stop aggression, fighting against that evil . . . is a duty of a Muslim society,” he said.
Ghani also blamed the deteriorating security situation on the “sudden” decision by the United States to pull out of Afghanistan by the end of this month. President Biden has set an August 31 deadline for the last American troops to leave, in an unconditional withdrawal despite the rising violence.
With the US now dashing for the exit after 20 years of war, the Taliban launched a massive offensive throughout the country in May. Scores of rural districts have been overrun and more than a dozen cities encircled and besieged.
“The current situation is due to a sudden decision on the withdrawal of the international troops,” Ghani told parliament. He added that the Taliban had reneged on its promise to sever ties with terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, which was a condition of the US agreement to leave the country.
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“Not only has the Taliban not cut ties with domestic and international terrorists but these ties have become stronger, their violence has increased,” he said.
The Taliban dismissed Ghani’s comments. The insurgents have never recognised the legitimacy of the president or his administration, denouncing them as American “puppets”.
“Declarations of war, accusations and lies cannot prolong Ghani’s government’s life; his time has run out, God willing,” Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said on Twitter.
Local militias have already taken up arms against the Taliban, fighting alongside government troops in several of the cities under siege. In western Herat, the elderly warlord Ismail Khan has thrown his fighters into the defence of the city, as fierce house-to-house fighting rages.
Khan, now aged 75, was a former comrade of many Taliban commanders in the mujahideen that fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s. He turned against the Islamists during the Afghan civil war that spawned the Taliban after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and leant his fighters to the American campaign after the 2001 invasion.
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In Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold that was the epicentre of the insurgency against British troops in Afghanistan, locals said the militants were firing anti-aircraft guns at strategic buildings and were shelling the city. About 100,000 civilians have fled, but thousands more remain trapped in homes and cellars.
“The Taliban is positioned on high-rise buildings within Lashkar Gah city, with heavy artillery and anti-aircraft weapons,” said Abdul Azizi Safdari, a resident of the city. “All grocery shops are shut, the whole city if closed. We can’t get anything from outside.”
Another resident, Tor Jan Khan, said the situation inside the besieged city was growing dire. “I’m hiding in the basement and can hear firing all around. The sky is full of warplanes. Those who could got their families out to other districts a few days ago. Everyone else is trapped in their homes,” he said. “Helmand is disconnected by land and air now.”
