Iran Press/ Asia: Deborah Lyons also called on the international community to urge both sides to stop fighting and negotiate to prevent a “catastrophe” in war-torn Afghanistan.
The latest Taliban surge, she warned, is reminiscent of attacks on large urban centers in Syria’s war and the Bosnian war in the 1990s that devastated Sarajevo.
For his part, the Afghan ambassador to the United Nations denounced the Taliban offensive as a “deliberate act of barbarism," and claimed the insurgents are being aided in their onslaught by more than 10,000 foreign fighters from 20 terror networks, including al-Qaida and ISIS terrorist group.
“This is not a civil war, but a war of criminalized and terrorist networks, fought on the back of Afghans," said Ambassador Ghulam Isaczai.
According to AP, Lyons, speaking to an in-person meeting of the council virtually from Kabul, appealed to council members to act with unity to “prevent Afghanistan from descending into a situation of catastrophe so serious that it would have few, if any, parallels this century.”
The Taliban have for months stepped up attacks across Afghanistan, laying siege to provincial capitals in the south and west of the country after capturing district after district and even seizing several key border crossings.
As US and NATO forces complete their final pullout from the country by the end of the month, the Taliban have now turned their guns on several provincial capitals.
On Friday, the Taliban appeared to have taken their first provincial capital - the city of Zaranj in southern Nimroz province, though the Afghan government claimed there was still fierce fighting underway and that the city had not fallen.
Isaczai, the Afghan ambassador, stressed that the Taliban are violating the accord they signed with the United States in Qatar’s capital of Doha in February 2020. The deal was meant to allow for American troops to gradually leave Afghanistan after 19 years of war and pave way for intra-Afghan negotiations that would shape the country’s political future.
Under the accord, the Taliban pledged to combat other terror groups — including al-Qaida, which they once harbored and prevent militants from using Afghan territory to stage attacks on America.
But the link between the Taliban and these foreign militant groups, the ambassador claimed, is “stronger today than at any point in recent times” with “unprecedented" links to drugs, smuggling, and robbing of Afghanistan’s natural resources.
The ambassador appealed to the Security Council “to compel the Taliban to end their campaign of violence and terror against our people and to prevent further bloodshed and urge them to return to talks.”
He also urged the council to impose more sanctions on those involved in the current violence and reiterated Kabul's standing accusation against Islamabad, insisting that the Taliban “continue to enjoy a safe have in and supply and the logistic line extended to their war machine from Pakistan.”
Lyons urged participants in meetings next week in Doha, where the Taliban maintain a political office, to convey to the insurgents that “a government-imposed by force will not be recognized.”
US deputy ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis echoed Lyons, saying that the international community “will not accept a military takeover of Afghanistan or a return of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate” and if they choose that path they “will be isolated as an international pariah.”
The Security Council's emergency session followed a statement from earlier this week in which the world body called for a cease-fire and peace talks, and condemned the July 30 attack on the UN compound in western Herat province that killed an Afghan security guard.
Whether the council decides to take further action in response to Lyons and Isaczai's appeals remains to be seen.
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