With private contractors involved the number is a bit higher. I would say about above 10k giving support and logistics and air strikes to the ANA.
Well from their point of view they are. They don't see america as the lone occupier but the Afghan govt as a puppet. Although they have made the withdrawal of US forces a pre condition for talks but it doesn't mean they would simply roll back. Even if peace talks succeed, they would take a huge chunk of influence and control for peace.
Can't blame them there. The Taliban wanted peace in 2002 and wanted to partake and cooperate with the karzai govt in 2002 and become part of the peace process but both the karzai govt and US ignored and snubbed them. They made overtures again and again in 2003 as well but the US didn't care. Quite frankly the US believed that they were a spent force and non threatening. In its drunk state of power the US saw no point in peace talking with the enemy it had beaten. However that was a huge mistake that haunts the US. Today the US and the afghan govt is again and again calling them to peace talks to this extent that the Taliban are not in their terror list and the Taliban are ignoring them. Quite frankly the Taliban are led by young commanders who are not interested. The previous generation of 2000s was more prone to peace talks.
Afghanistan is not a normal state. Its a state filled with war lord loyalists, ethnic strifes and territorial strifes. In Afghanistan the concept of occupier is not the one we hold. For example for many tribes in pakistan the occupier could also be the tribe across the mountain within Afghanistan. Many war Lords have sold weapons and supplies to Taliban to target their enemies or to humiliate them. In such a scenario you haveany candidates and groups wanting to run Afghanistan their own way. Afghanistan is in a state of a civil war and this civil war goes way back
Even before the Russian invasion. Groups and ethnicities have been fighting over there for a good while to run things their own way.
Quite frankly at this point. I dont know what the Taliban are thinking.
Maybe they are overplaying their cards but in every interview, it has been highlighted that they are not oblivious to the fact that they won't return to the power of 1996-2001. They know this could mean that maybe they are overplaying or gaining enough ground for a great bargain in negotiation.
Either way peace in Afghanistan is looking harder and harder everyday.
Although the civil war is older than Russian invasion but its severity became thousand of times greater after their invasion and this war has went on for four decades. Its effects are far reaching.
As for FATA
Why should we sell our land to failed States who can't control their own countries?
Terror attacks happen but do not underestimate the 2400km open border with mountainous passages that go hundreds of years back. We won in FATA and destabilized their network. The TTP ran into Afghanistan and morphed into ISIS. Considering the state of our neighbor, we are doing good in stopping terror attacks and reducing them.
FATA is important for us bcz the people are Pakistani and the land is pakistan. The people and tribes fought afghans in 1960s and fought and shed blood with us against the Taliban. The Lashkar's they raised played a very crucial role in dismantling terrorists in FATA. We owe them.
Would you not call selling them like commodities a great insult to their sacrifice just bcz we couldn't stop a few terror attacks in lahore.
Therefore we are fencing parts of borders and slowly securing all of it.
Will it stop terrorism? I don't know but I know it will greatly reduce it and play an important role in its reduction.
There is a lot more to the afghan war than meets the eye and the social fabric in Afghanistan has played a crucial role in this 40 years of pure civil war and its continuation for such a long time.
What do you guys think about social fabric of Afghanistan and the civil war that plagues it.
@pakistani342 @Icarus @Joe Shearer @Arsalan