MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th July, 2021) Some people in the Afghan districts that the Taliban have recently captured have risen against the radical movement, and if the Taliban's offensive continues, this might plunge the country into a civil war, the Afghan president's national security adviser, Hamdullah Mohib, told Sputnik.
In May, the United States and NATO officially began pulling out forces from Afghanistan, which prompted the Taliban to launch a series of attacks in the north of the country. In less than two months, Taliban captured 50 out of Afghanistan's 370 districts, UN envoy for Afghanistan Deborah Lyons said on June 22.
"Some people in some of these districts that they overrun picked up arms against the Taliban. Now, for the time being, this is in support of the Afghan national defense and security forces, so it's temporary. But if the Taliban offensive continues, this could prolong. And the problems with these groups is they can turn into militias and that by itself would lead to a civil war," Mohib said.
The Afghan government hopes that the Taliban will commit to earnest talks that can help create a government that would include the Taliban and other parties, the security adviser said.
As the international troops keep leaving Afghanistan, the most important thing for the country is to ensure that it can "use this opportunity to create a stable Afghanistan and a stable region," Mohib said.
"It's a challenge for us in the country, on a domestic level, but it's also a challenge for the region because if the results are not what we all want and what the Afghan people want, it will have consequences for Afghanistan first, but it will also have serious security consequences for Central Asia and also Russia," the security adviser said.
Last week, the White House said it was expecting the withdrawal to complete by the end of August.
The US initially expected to finish the drawdown of its forces by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack that razed the Twin Towers in New York, claimed thousands of lives and set off the War on Terror. One element of that US campaign was the mission in Afghanistan, which began in October 2001.
