The appalling bomb blast in Kabul yesterday emphasised how fragile Afghanistan’s search for peace has become. The country has settled into an uneasy equilibrium that the insurgents find easy to disturb far too often, and the army is unable to take the fight to the remote valleys where the government’s authority does not run. The Afghan army has some major internal issues as it wrestles with high casualties and a steady stream of desertions as individual soldiers make their own decisions on their future. Their morale is low as they have been worn down by the long grind of years of military struggle against insurgents that seems to continue without end as the Taliban and its allies still control over a third of Afghan territory.
From their secure bases deep inside the country, the Taliban is able to wreak havoc with seeming impunity. The Afghan forces are backed by United States (8,400 soldiers) and Nato forces (about 5,000) who have a strictly training and support role, all of which is way down from more than 100,000 US soldiers in active combat up to six years ago. The answer lies in Afghanistan’s friends standing behind the efforts of the Afghan government to bolster its authority, and bringing Afghanistan’s neighbours back into the regional working group that supported the elimination of violent insurgency. This task also needs the support of the country’s major international allies, as the Kabul government cannot win this fight on its own. It is in everyone’s interests to see the end of violence, and Afghanistan needs consistent and steady support for years to eliminate the tragedy of violence from its political life.
