‘What’s your plan to ensure Taliban don’t acquire nuclear weapons from Pak?’: US lawmakers to Biden

As the August 31 deadline for the United States and its allies to pull out its troops nears, there remains mounting tension regarding the nature of rule that Islamist militants Taliban would impose on Afghanistan. The lawmakers further noted that over the past few weeks, the world became a spectacle of Taliban’s sweeping control over Afghanistan with surprising speed — which they hailed as the result of “unforced errors made by withdrawing completely the small remaining footprint of main military force.” They also raised concerns over the unnecessary delay of the “evacuation of US personnel and its Afghan partners.” The group in the letter highlighted that the effect of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years doesn’t only have consequences in the particular nation, or even the Middle East, but also carry strategic and geographical consequences that have already commenced to unravel and will continue for decades. “Dealing with these consequences means that we must take action now to chart the course for American strategy, while we manage the immediate repercussions of this self-inflicted crisis in Afghanistan,” the letter noted, with the lawmakers asking Biden to “outline” his plan to “move America forward.” They also detailed about the swift manner in which Afghanistan “metastasised” into Taliban rule accompanied by rekindled oppression to women and girls, and the restraint of civil society. The group of lawmakers also asked Biden to lay out his plan on ensuring that al Qaeda does not “resurge and regain a foothold in Afghanistan.” “What ‘over the horizon’ operations are you prepared to use to counter this threat?” they asked, noting that the intelligence community has cautioned against al Qaeda and ISIS-K getting full liberty from the Taliban to use Afghanistan as a safe haven to train and equip for future terrorists. A leader of Pakistan’s ruling Tehreek-e-Insaf government, Neelam Irshad Sheikh, recently said on a television news debate that the militants have said that they will help Pakistan in “liberating Kashmir from India.” Soon after regaining power in Afghanistan, Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen had said that the group won’t allow anyone to use the country’s soil against any other nation.