After NATO withdrawal: Who is now active in Afghanistan

Who will find himself in the power vacuum in Afghanistan after NATO’s withdrawal? With China and India, two powers are advancing from the region who want to push back the Taliban – and have clear self-interests in the country.

“The early withdrawal of NATO troops triggered fear and panic among the population,” says the Afghan journalist Marzai Akbary frankly. “People fear that the peace talks will not come to a positive conclusion. The Taliban’s attacks are spreading and the situation is escalating.” Akbary sees Afghanistan on the brink of civil war. Her hometown has been besieged by the Taliban for days. They are currently trying to bring the provinces in the north under their control.

The last Bundeswehr aviator left Mazar-i-Sharif last night. With the withdrawal of the Bundeswehr and the dissolution of the Marmal NATO camp, NATO was the first to surrender northern Afghanistan. The military presence was a guarantee of security there. Officially, the NATO mission is due to end on September 11th – exactly 20 years after the Al-Qaeda terrorist network of Osama bin Laden brought down the towers of the World Trade Center in the USA. The 2001 Islamist attacks were coordinated from Afghanistan and sparked the large-scale NATO military operation under US leadership. The Taliban, who ruled large parts of the country, should be driven from power, Afghanistan should no longer be a retreat for terrorist networks.

India fears capture of Kabul

20 years later, the Taliban are trying to return. They use the power vacuum left by the withdrawing NATO troops. The US government is concerned. The expansion of violence by the Taliban is making it difficult to establish peace, the commander of the US forces in Afghanistan, General Scott Miller, told Tolonews, an Afghan news broadcaster, in an interview. Miller announced that “the coalition or US air forces will continue to support the Afghan army in attacks and – if necessary – defend them”. US troops are still in the country.

In India’s government circles it is even considered possible that the Taliban will take the capital Kabul after the withdrawal of NATO troops. That would ruin India’s investment and development projects in Afghanistan. There are in all the provinces of the country.

India also fears that refugee flows from Afghanistan could start – and that radical Islamists would come into the country with them. This could also further fuel the conflict in the long-running cashmere hearth. A January United Nations report said there were up to 500 al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan and that the Taliban had close ties with the Islamist extremist group. The Taliban deny that.

Future cooperation with China?

New Delhi is also concerned that the Afghan government is looking for new security partners. We want to cooperate more closely with China, said Rahmatullah Andar, spokesman for the Afghan National Security Council, in May: “Both countries see terrorism as a common threat, we want to fight it together.”

One thing is clear: the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan is likely to result in geopolitical shifts, says Markus Kaim from the Science and Politics Foundation in Berlin: “Afghanistan is in a way a forecourt for China. It cannot be ruled out that China will be more active than will be the case as soon as the US has left Afghanistan. ”

China is launching gigantic infrastructure projects in many parts of the world in order to draw the regions into its sphere of influence, emphasizes Keim – and asks the question of what the West would like to counter.

India’s government also fears that China will use the newly created power vacuum and secure Afghanistan’s sphere of influence. According to New Delhi, China would then have direct land connections to Central Asia and Europe. The connections of the old Silk Road, which led from China via Afghanistan to Russia and Europe, would be open again for China.