Since the U.S. left Afghanistan Aug. 31 after nearly 20 years fighting the Taliban and other terrorist groups in a bloody guerrilla war, the brother of the late Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, Ahmad Wali Massoud, announced his plans to start a civil war to end Taliban rule. With plenty of bloodshed spilled over the last 20 years, it’s inconceivable that the U.S. or EU can now get sucked into another Afghan civil war. Whatever vendetta Wali Massoud has with the Taliban, it’s not in U.S. national security to support another insurgency bound to lead only to more death and destruction. Wali Massoud demanded that the Taliban grant Panjshir Valley autonomy, allowing the region free of Taliban rule. Clashes in the Panjshir Valley resulted in the deaths of eight Taliban fighters said Fahim Dashi, spokesman for the Northern Alliance founded by Ahmad Shah Massoud.
Tribal and ethnic strife was exactly why former President George W. Bush should not have stayed in Afghanistan once he knew Dec. 15, 2001 that Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden fled the country. Bush started Operation Enduring Freedom Oct. 7, 2001 only three weeks after Sept. 11. When the Taliban government fell Nov. 14, 2001, Bush had finished the mission, knowing that the Taliban was not connected with Bin Laden, other that giving him safe harbor in Afghanistan. In toppling the Taliban, Bush didn’t know whether that would help lead to the capture or death of Bin Laden. Instead of leaving Afghanistan after Bin Laden left, Bush stayed in Afghanistan to nation-build for nearly 20 years. Now the Ahmad Wali Massoud wants President Joe Biden to start funding an insurgency to eventually oust the Taliban from Kabul. Massoud knows he’s thrown down the gauntlet with the Taliban.
Taliban militants now converge on Panjshir to eradicate Massoud’s insurgency. There’s zero stomach at the White House or in Brussels to give cash-and-arms to Massoud’s Northern Alliance. Northern Alliance are still trying to avenge the Sept. 9, 2001 suicide bombing death of founder Ahmad Shah Massoud, whose mujahedeen fighters worked for 10 years to oust the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in 1996. “What we really proposed was ‘Let’s talk, let’s talk peace,’ but the way the Taliban responds . . . is not very positive,” Wali Massoud said. Wali Massoud can’t possibly think that after the Taliban’s historic victory, watching the might U.S. leave Afghanistan, they’re going to cede parts of the country to other groups. Calling civil war “very likely,” Massoud is kidding himself that his Panjshir Valley resistance groupis now going to take on the mighty Taliban.
Wali Massoud can’t possibly think the Taliban, after fighting the U.S. for nearly 20 years, is ready to cede the Panjshir Valley to the Northern Alliance. Whatever happened to Wali’s brother, the “Lion of Panjshir,” Ahamad Shah Massoud, was not due to the Taliban. Shah Massoud was likely killed by an al-Qaeda suicide bomber. “The Taliban will not accept [the deal], they will start the war fighting. We have to resist, we have to defend ourselves . . .The next step would be an all-out war in Afghanistan,” said Wali Massoud. Wali Massoud now figures he can appeal of certain foreign donors who, among other things, are vulnerable to nonsense about human rights. Life under the Northern Alliance was and is no democracy. U.S. officials once gave the Northern Alliance cash-and-arms when they fought with Osama bin Laden’s muhahedeen fighters to end Soviet occupation.
Massoud thinks he can raise money in Europe to fund more civil war in Afghanistan, claiming he’s the champion of women’s rights, now that the Taliban’s in power. “Human rights, women’s rights, democracy, all of the rights that you introduced to us, and all of a sudden you sell use out to terrorists, to a [group] from the medieval dark ages,” said Ahmad Massoud, son of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud. For the last 20 years, no one from the Northern Alliance fought for women’s rights or any other rights for that matter. Only after the Taliban declares victory does the Massoud clan make their financial appeal of donors in Europe and the United States. “We really think of it as a betrayal on behalf of the Afghan people,” Massoud said. “If they wanted to come out, they could have come out in a disciplined way,” criticizing the Biden White House for handing control the Taliban.
No one from the U.S. or EU can possibly accept the Massoud’s call to fund civil war in Afghanistan. Whatever the problems exist in Afghanistan, they’re not going to be solved by a new civil war. Whether admitted to or not by the Massoud clan, they’re no match for the Taliban, most likely will be wiped out sometime soon. No one believes the Northern Alliance is the great supporter of women’s or human rights, now trying to fundraise in the EU and U.S. to support their insurgency. “Now the resistance has expanded so much, a lot of people are part of the resistance. The women of Afghanistan that do not believe in the Taliban as part of their beliefs, they are part of the resistance. The younger generation [is] part of the resistance; civil society [is] part of the resistance,” said Massoud. Massoud’s naked con job on the EU and U.S. should be obvious to everyone: Fundraise off the Taliban.
