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Men line up to vote in front of a pooling station in Khost city, eastern Afghanistan, on Saturday, October 20, 2018. Tens of thousands of Afghan forces have deployed across the country to ensure security, the vote began Saturday in the election followed a campaign marked by incessant violence. (Nishan Khan / Associated Press)
WASHINGTON – The assassination of Afghan leaders in Kandahar province will not diminish US support for the war in Afghanistan or deter local security forces from fighting the Taliban, the supreme commander said on Saturday. United States in the Middle East.
General Joseph Votel said the United States was "confident enough that Afghans will be able to maintain the situation" in Kandahar.
The Taliban said Thursday's attack, which killed an influential police chief, targeted the highest US commander in Afghanistan. But US military officials said that General Scott Miller, the army general, was not in the line of fire and that he came out unscathed.
The attack that took place shortly before Saturday's parliamentary elections, in which the violence tainted the polls, was a stark reminder of the formidable task that the Trump administration faces in trying to bring America out of the dark. long war.
Votel expressed confidence in the ability of Afghan forces to ensure the security of elections and the future.
"In my opinion, the Afghans resist this," he said. "I do not think it's going to change the security situation."
The Kandahar shootings, he said, will not diminish "our will or our future."
Votel's comment to reporters traveling with him to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar echoed the sentiment expressed on Friday by US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.
"We remain absolutely committed to an Afghan-led Afghan reconciliation," Mattis told reporters on Friday at a conference on Asian security in Singapore. "For the moment, we are heading towards the elections and we will continue to defend the Afghan people."
But the timing of the attack makes the US goals seem more and more distant.
It was barely a week after the United States announced talks with the Taliban and the administration stepped up efforts to restart peace talks between the militant group and the Afghan government to end the war. and that she was entering her 18th year.
About 14,000 US troops are in Afghanistan to train and help Afghan government forces fight the Taliban, which controls or challenges nearly half of the country's districts. The violence is increasing, killing hundreds of civilians each month. There have been seven combat deaths in the United States so far this year.
Colonel David Butler of the US Army, who was near the scene of the shootout after Miller met with Afghan officials, challenged the Taliban and claimed that the target was the Kandahar police chief, Abdul Raziq, one of the three officials killed. But even their claim that they attacked Miller left a doubt about the willingness of the militants to negotiate.
The recent appointment of Zalmay Khalilzad, former US ambassador to Afghanistan, as envoy for Afghan reconciliation aimed to boost the US peace effort and bring the Taliban to direct talks with the government from Ashraf Ghani.
The Taliban said their political representatives in Qatar met Khalilzad a week ago during his first trip to a multinational since taking office. The state department did not confirm the October 12 meeting, but did not deny it either, which has been widely seen in Washington as a tacit acknowledgment that this is happening. is produced. A similar scenario took place in July, when the Taliban announced a meeting with the highest US diplomat for South and Central Asia, Alice Wells.
The risk of such indirect discussions could alienate the Afghan government. The Taliban claimed that the two sides had been discussing the search for a way to withdraw foreign forces from Afghanistan – an issue on which the Afghan government would require intervention, which would be the key to any deal of peace. As US officials did not confirm the meeting, they were not able to publicly deny the Taliban's story.
The Taliban condemned the elections as an event manipulated by the United States to strengthen their grip on the country and a commitment to disrupt them.
The elections to the lower house of 249 seats are already three years behind schedule. The United States has committed nearly $ 80 million to support the Afghan electoral authorities under their leadership.
The poll in the southern province of Kandahar was postponed for a week because of Thursday's attack and did not take place in Ghazni due to insecurity in the region.
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Baldor reported from Doha, Qatar. Associated Press editors Deb Riechmann in Washington and Robert Burns in Singapore contributed to this report.
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, disseminated, rewritten or redistributed.
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