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Security forces in Afghanistan
Photo: JALIL AHMAD / REUTERS
In view of the advance of the Taliban in the Hindu Kush, the warlord Abdul Raschid Dostum, feared for his brutality, has returned to Afghanistan from Turkey.
Dostum arrived for talks with the government in the capital Kabul, as his spokesman for the AFP news agency said.
The topic should therefore be security in the northern province of Jausdschan.
Meanwhile, Russia started joint military exercises with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan on the Tajik-Afghan border.
According to his spokesman, Dostum also wanted to meet with President Ashraf Ghani. Apparently the government in Kabul is hoping for help from Dostum's militia to push back the Taliban in the north. The warlord reports to one of the largest militias in the north. Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek, has switched sides again and again during the bloody conflicts of the past decades and was also vice-president at times.
Dostum's militia fought the Taliban with extreme brutality in the 1990s.
Between 2014 and 2019 Dostum was Vice President under Ghani, with whom he then fell out.
However, Dostum spent a large part of his tenure as Vice President in exile in Turkey because he was threatened with kidnapping, abuse and rape proceedings in Afghanistan.
It is believed that he has received medical treatment in Turkey in the past few months.
In parallel with the rapid withdrawal of NATO troops, government troops and the Taliban are engaged in bitter fighting in Afghanistan.
The Islamists have already conquered large parts of the country, most recently they attacked several provincial capitals.
Peace talks stall
The situation is currently particularly serious in Laschkar Gah, the capital of the southern Helmand province.
According to UN information, dozens of civilians have been killed there in the past few days.
At the same time, the month-long peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Qatar's capital Doha have stalled.
The EU condemned the recent attacks by the Taliban and called for a "comprehensive and lasting" ceasefire.
"The Taliban's military offensive is in direct contradiction to its declared commitment to a negotiated solution to the conflict," said EU Foreign Affairs Representative Josep Borrell and Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Protection, Janez Lenarcic.
The Taliban violated international law and human rights, among other things through "arbitrary and extrajudicial killings of civilians, public flogging of women and the destruction of the infrastructure," emphasized the top EU representatives.
They called for an investigation into the alleged war crimes.
The UN Security Council wants to deal with the escalation of the fighting in Afghanistan on Friday.
According to diplomats, the meeting was requested by Afghanistan along with Estonia and Norway.
mfh / AFP