U.S. negotiations with the Taliban signals how they plan to deal with Al Shabaab

[Crow]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/09/world/middleeast/afghanistan-peace-agreement-us-troops.html

Will a New Plan End the War in Afghanistan?
Peace remains elusive after 18 years of war. A framework agreement between the United States and the Taliban will signal how it might be possible.

WASHINGTON — After 18 years of war, the United States is once again preparing to unveil a plan for peace in Afghanistan.

Months of dialogue between American diplomats and the Taliban have yielded a framework agreement that is expected to be announced in days. That agreement, in turn, seeks to smooth a path for direct talks between elected Afghan leaders and the Taliban — a significant but tenuous step for a government and its former oppressors.

Those negotiations will be rocky at best, and a final cease-fire could be months or even years away. Crucial obstacles remain, according to military and diplomatic officials, including whether American troops will stay in Afghanistan, how to protect women’s rights enshrined in the republic’s constitution and, importantly, if a future government could share power with the Taliban.

The framework will be announced as presidential elections approach, both in Afghanistan and in the United States, and as violence on both sides continues. The Taliban have kept up a steady march of attacks, but a United Nations report found that Afghan forces and their American allies were responsible for more civilian deaths than the extremists during the first six months of the year. The expected agreement will signal whether peace is even possible.

Does the agreement mean the war is over?
No. But it opens the way for the Taliban to start direct negotiations with Afghan government leaders. Before that could happen, American and Taliban officials wanted to settle on two areas at the heart of their concerns: How much longer the 14,000 United States troops that are in Afghanistan would remain, and whether that country could ever be used as a safe haven for terrorist groups.

Does it at least mean the fighting has stopped?
No. Violence surged in July, the deadliest month in Afghanistan in years, according to the United Nations. An estimated 1,500 Afghan civilians were either killed or wounded last month; 14 people died this week in a truck bombing in Kabul.

So what happens now?
In an interview on Friday, Ms. Rahmani expressed hope that talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, known as the intra-Afghan negotiations, would begin as soon as possible, and potentially before the country’s presidential elections are held on Sept. 28.

But the Taliban also wield power over more than 10 percent of Afghanistan’s population — 59 of the country’s 407 districts, according to the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Another 119 districts are considered contested.

When will American troops fully leave Afghanistan?
The Taliban have demanded that all United States and other international military forces leave Afghanistan before there is a cease-fire. The framework agreement will clarify a continuing debate among American officials, pitting President Trump’s demand to end the war in Afghanistan against the military’s advice for some residual forces to remain.


American military officials in Kabul believe the Taliban are unable, and unwilling, to divorce themselves from Al Qaeda, a key requirement for the United States. The officials also believe Afghan government forces and Taliban fighters alike are incapable of defeating the Islamic State’s offshoot in the country.

How many American troops might stay in Afghanistan?
That is unclear, but American officials have proposed keeping a task force of as many as 7,000 troops, based in Kabul, to feed intelligence and other information to Afghan soldiers across the country for several years. That could also include Special Operations forces who would be moved to Kabul after their base in Bagram is closed.

Given the distrust between Kabul and the Taliban, is a final peace deal even possible?
Ms. Rahmani, who stressed on Friday that she had not yet seen the framework agreement, acknowledged a trust deficit between the two sides that could not be glossed over in informal “ice-breaking” talks on the sidelines of the negotiations with the United States.

Among Afghan negotiators in Doha, Qatar, where the talks took place, “some of them felt there is a positive change; that there would be some hope in terms of finding a way to come to middle ground,” Ms. Rahmani said. “Some others felt that the Taliban has not really changed — they’re still of the same views as they held during the time they were in power in Afghanistan.”

After almost two decades of war with no end in sight, Americans are negotiating an end to the war with the Taliban with a plan to integrate them into the government. If the negotiations succeed, they will become a model for future negotiations with Al Shabaab, which the U.S. has signaled their openness to in the past.

While the Taliban/Afghanistan and Al Shabaab/Somalia situations share many similarities, there are a few major differences.

1. The Taliban rules 10% of the Afghani people while Al Shabaab rules 4-5 times as much, if I were to guess.
2. Americans have 14,000 troops currently in Afghanistan and have lost billions of dollars and hundreds of soldiers with nothing to show for it after almost 20 years. Their military investment and thus their stake in Somalia is significantly smaller.

If the U.S. does negotiate with Al Shabaab and hands them the keys to the villa, Puntland will have no choice but to secede. It is unfair that we should suffer a terrorist government when they control next to none of our territory. We are willing to stay at war until 2200 and see who tires first before we accept Al Shabaab rule.

We should watch closely how many positions the Taliban is offered to join the Afghani government. Whatever they get, know that Al Shabaab will be offered several times more.

 

[Shaolin23]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/09/world/middleeast/afghanistan-peace-agreement-us-troops.html








After almost two decades of war with no end in sight, Americans are negotiating an end to the war with the Taliban with a plan to integrate them into the government. If the negotiations succeed, they will become a model for future negotiations with Al Shabaab, which the U.S. has signaled their openness to in the past.

While the Taliban/Afghanistan and Al Shabaab/Somalia situations share many similarities, there are a few major differences.

1. The Taliban rules 10% of the Afghani people while Al Shabaab rules 4-5 times as much, if I were to guess.
2. Americans have 14,000 troops currently in Afghanistan and have lost billions of dollars and hundreds of soldiers with nothing to show for it after almost 20 years. Their military investment and thus their stake in Somalia is significantly smaller.

If the U.S. does negotiate with Al Shabaab and hands them the keys to the villa, Puntland will have no choice but to secede. It is unfair that we should suffer a terrorist government when they control next to none of our territory. We are willing to stay at war until 2200 and see who tires first before we accept Al Shabaab rule.

We should watch closely how many positions the Taliban is offered to join the Afghani government. Whatever they get, know that Al Shabaab will be offered several times more.

Are you stupid or something how can you compare Taliban to AS...Taliban are 100x more organized,powerful and intelligent than AS who are becoming even weaker

 

[Crow]

They control almost all of Hirshabelle, South West State, and Jubaland outside of their respective capitals. And even in those cities they do not militarily control, like Mogadishu, they have shadow governments who tax civilians, carry out assassinations, and run courts.

Are you stupid or something how can you compare Taliban to AS...Taliban are 100x more organized,powerful and intelligent than AS who are becoming even weaker

Al Shabaab controls a larger proportion of their country's population and is therefore in a stronger bargaining position than the Taliban. This reality will not go away just because you don't like it.

 

[Ibrahim hassan]

They control almost all of Hirshabelle, South West State, and Jubaland outside of their respective capitals. And even in those cities they do not militarily control, like Mogadishu, they have shadow governments who tax civilians, carry out assassinations, and run courts.

Al Shabaab controls a larger proportion of their country's population and is therefore in a stronger bargaining position than the Taliban. This reality will not go away just because you don't like it.

I think you dont understand how weak alshabab are and how little is being done against them, alshabab is full of people backbiting, corruption and internal conflict. Sna already chasing them and beating them in every conflict