Protect Afghan Civilians

A family displaced from their home by the advance of the Taliban forces on August 12 in Kabul, the Afghan capital.Paula Bronstein / GETTY

The advances of the Taliban in the last week have puzzled even the most pessimistic observers of the situation in Afghanistan.

The Islamist militia has conquered almost all the important cities of the country in just a few days and yesterday they reached Mazar-i-Sharif, one of the three that remained in the hands of the Government - the other two are Jalalabad and Kabul, which are increasingly threatened.

Twenty years of international intervention have vanished in record time and the extent to which the Afghan state was a fiction has been revealed.

The country is in the hands of warlords willing to make a pact with the Taliban, who are proving to be the only political and military force with implantation throughout the territory.

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• The Afghan president accelerates contacts to stop the conflict in the face of the rapid Taliban advance towards Kabul

The total withdrawal of the United States was scheduled for August 31, but the Taliban have not waited for President Joe Biden to fulfill his promise to remove every last soldier to advance on all fronts, including in areas of the north of the country that they did not conquer when they came to power between 1996 and 2001. The Afghan security forces theoretically number 300,000 and the United States invested $ 83 billion in their training and equipment - although it is impossible to know what percentage of this amount disappeared in rampant corruption. However, some provinces have fallen without fighting and in other cases entire units have surrendered due to lack of supplies. Deprived even of food and water, they surrendered their position and weapons in exchange for saving their lives.

Beyond the inevitable damage to the image of the United States as a military and diplomatic power, this debacle has clear victims: civilians who live again under a regime of terror in which corporal punishment and public executions prevail. This is especially true for Afghan women, who risk losing what they have gained over the years. For the Taliban, women have absolutely no rights. It is not that they are forced to live in a burqa, but rather that they cannot leave the house without risking being beaten unless they are accompanied by a male. Access to education or minimal healthcare is de facto forbidden. Their situation in Afghanistan remained very precarious, especially in rural areas, although significant progress has been made: in 2001 there were 900,000 children in school,all guys; in 2020 there were 9.5 million, 39% of them girls.

The international community has proven incapable of defending civilians on the ground. Although Biden has announced the dispatch of 3,000 soldiers to Kabul to protect his diplomats, it is clear that the Afghans have been left to their fate. The countries that participated in the military mission in Afghanistan, including Spain, have announced operations to remove the translators and officials who worked in their service from the country. Given the rapidity with which events have unfolded, in many cases it will unfortunately be too late.

The offensive has unleashed a wave of refugees and displaced people: since May, 250,000 people have been forced from their homes. Beyond diplomatic pressure through Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the two main supports of the militia, so that emergency aid can be distributed and trying to give a boost to peace talks totally overcome by the situation on the ground, the international community has a duty to welcome those fleeing Taliban war and terror. Canada has already been willing to give refugee status to 20,000 Afghans, especially women or members of the LGTBI community. The latter face certain death if discovered. The EU and the US cannot look the other way to a disaster for which they have a clear responsibility.The military intervention has been a failure. There is still time for the humanitarian response to not be.