The increasing influence of Taliban and deteriorating situation in the country marks the failure of six years Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. The upsurge in suicide attacks has terrorizing impact on both the local and foreign forces in the country. These attacks highlights that protracted asymmetrical warfare in Afghanistan has failed to kill the insurgents resolve to fight against the Western collision forces. In addition, the grievance in society due to the collateral damage of ongoing war on terrorism is in the advantage of Taliban and Al Qaida.
Presently, Afghanistan appears to be stuck in a no-exit cycle of chronic political instability despite the change of guards in Kabul and dislodging of Al Qaeda in 2001. President Karzai government has failed to establish writ in the country. The Operation Enduring Freedom has further deepened the ethnic divide and hatred in Afghan society. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), United States (US) and Afghan forces have failed to eliminate the Taliban phenomenon and Al Qaida network in the country. The foreign forces even failed to stabilize the capital city-Kabul. The situation out of Kabul remains volatile. Warlords from the pre-Taliban years have reemerged and established themselves as de facto power holders in many areas. The Americans superiority of weaponry seemed botched against insurgents. The butchering tactics of collision forces not only strengthen Pashtun’s resolve to resist, but has equally enhance the sympathies of their sympathizers. This perpetual cycle of violence is nourishing anarchy in the state.
In January 2004 a new Constitution was adopted. Article 1 of the Constitution describes Afghanistan as an independent, unitary and indivisible state. It envisaged a powerful presidency and defined Afghanistan as an Islamic republic, where men and women enjoy equal status before the law. The Presidential and parliamentary elections held in the Afghanistan under the new constitution. Nevertheless, the promulgation of new constitution seems failed to institutionalize judicial settlement and obligatory processes. Consequently, the protracted asymmetrical warfare has been broadening the ethnic cleavages; giving rise to poverty; strengthening Islamic radicalism, Taliban and Al Qaida; increasing poppy cultivation and drug trade; and above all justifying suicidal trend in the terrorists’ activities within the Afghan society.
The failure of constitutional setup to deliver further deteriorated the situation in Afghanistan. It has been dramatically changed in the course of last two years. Once again, after a six-year cycle, the wheel has turned and the nexus between Taliban and Al Qaeda has been reckoned as a forceful force in Southwest Afghanistan. President Hamid Karazi government and coalition forces have failed to rectify the political environment in Afghanistan. The government officials’ corruption and increasing circulation of drug money has magnified instability and insecurity in Afghanistan. The reconstructed Afghan national Army and Police force suffers from a high rate of absconding and other professional shortcomings.
The continuity of a deplorable situation in Afghanistan has destabilizing spillover effect on the neighboring countries of Afghanistan, especially Pakistan. The extremism and violence in the Federal Administrative Tribal Areas and North West Frontier province of Pakistan have severely undermined the internal security of Pakistan. The suicidal attacks in the very heart of the country exposed the failure of counterintelligence mechanism to combat terrorism within the country and also remind us the rude reality that being a partner in the war on terrorism we are exposed to greater threat of ethnic divide and religious extremism. Sooner we get rid of this problem, better for the national integration. It necessitates that we seriously revise our strategy to combat the menace of terrorism. While the Operation Enduring Freedom brought intense ideological struggles into most remote areas of Afghanistan. It precipitated a new leadership, the reworking of traditional patron-client relationships, and an adherence to large-scale identities based to religion, ethnicity, and political groupings. These identities introduced a numerous fault lines and tensions within Afghan civil society. These fault lines transformed the entire nature of the war in Afghanistan that necessitate well thought new war fighting strategy in Afghanistan and against transnational terrorism. In this context, the strategic pundits in the United States and its likeminded states have failed to theorize the new dimension in the making of modern strategy for asymmetrical warfare. They are stick with the idea that technological superiority is a decisive factor even in asymmetrical warfare. Indeed, overwhelming advantage in sophisticated military capabilities has failed to pacify Taliban resistance in Afghanistan. As a result, even six years after the fall of Kabul and the advent of the Hamid Karzai administration the Western forces have been unable to establish their writ out of the Kabul periphery.
This state of affair necessitates the vitality of new approach to control the violence aiming to ensure sense of security in the state. Importantly, the new approach ought to take into account the all the stakeholders concerns in Afghanistan, especially locals. Without the indigenous stakeholders being secure, the peace process is unlikely to take off. More precisely, a social and political system would be constructed that gives a reasonable social and political space to all groups in Afghan society.
