The New York Times reported that the United States had been recruiting, training and funding militias to help fight the Taliban, who are inching closer to taking over Afghanistan. However, these militias were known for torturing innocent Afghans.
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When the Taliban occupied Afghanistan in 2021, prompting a sudden and dramatic withdrawal of U.S. troops, Donald Trump blamed Joe Biden for the “disaster,” and Biden, in turn, He criticized the military for making donations so easily.
Now, an investigative report in the New York Times revealed that Washington was laying the groundwork for defeat “long before Afghan soldiers laid down their arms.”
The report alleges that the United States has been recruiting, training and paying militias to support its forces fighting the Taliban, who are inching closer to taking over Afghanistan. However, these militias were known to engage in torture, including killing innocent Afghans for revenge, destroying entire villages, and kidnapping them for ransom.
Northern Afghanistan, the first region to fall, was where these jobs began. The NYT conducted more than 50 interviews in Kunduz and “showed how American support for the militias spelled disaster not only for the state but for the rest of the north.”
Afghanistan. “
How did militia groups grow in power?
The United States had begun recruiting militias early in the Afghanistan war. Planned to exploit local resistance against the Taliban by training groups of men and creating an army, often under police guise.
Most of these efforts proved problematic. The militia quickly became too powerful to disarm. Although they fought the Taliban, they spent even more time fighting each other, creating the chaotic civil war situation that originally allowed the Taliban to seize power in the 1990s.
Frustrated by the predatory behavior of these militias, some Afghans came to see the Taliban as their protectors and eventually joined the insurgency.
Afghan government loses control
Amid growing hostility toward militias, the U.S. embassy in Kabul sent diplomatic cables to countries in 2009 urging governments to curb the rise of militias. By then, the Afghan government had no authority to control the militias that continued to commit atrocities against the local population.
The NYT spoke to families of victims of paramilitary terror. They reported that forced conscription was widespread. Men who refused to join militias were often killed, and men who refused to pay taxes were often accused of supporting the Taliban and imprisoned.
“The militias labeled anyone they didn’t like as ‘Taliban’ and abused them to the point where they had no choice but to join the Taliban,” said Mohammad, a shopkeeper who was imprisoned for refusing to pay one of his militiamen.・Farid said. Militia leaders.
Although the Americans did not orchestrate the abuses, they provided billions of dollars in cash and weapons to the government, which authorities used to recruit and arm militias. To the villagers, this appeared to be an American initiative, and the Taliban increasingly looked like an attractive alternative.
Militia joins Taliban
The tide soon turned and the situation descended into chaos, to the detriment of both the U.S. military and the Afghan government.
Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who took office in 2014, vowed to work with the United States to tackle the militia issue. But the militias, now vilified in public, have shifted their hatred to the Afghan government and even begun joining the Taliban they once fought against.
Sensing an opportunity, Taliban commanders secretly began contacting militia leaders, spreading mistrust by claiming that the government was hostile to the militias.
Hesmatullah Zalmay, a Taliban commander in Kunduz, said: “The division between the militias was very important to us.”
What happened after America left?
After U.S. forces withdrew in 2021 and Afghan forces laid down their arms, some of the most notorious warlords and criminals responsible for suffering in Kunduz and other areas – ultimately turning against the Taliban. Rather than support the Taliban, he disappeared without receiving a final judgment. A battle or a trial?
