US shrugged all red flags, signed Doha Agreement handing over Afghanistan to Pak: Report
Nov 01, 2022
Islamabad [Pakistan], November 1 : US signed the Doha Agreement with Taliban in 2020 even as Pakistan admitted to backing mujahideen in the Afghan civil war against US and NATO forces and supporting the Taliban-Haqqani campaign.
US ignored all the red flags that Pakistan could not be trusted on counter-terrorism issues. In February 2020, just days before the US-Taliban Doha Agreement was signed, a Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) general admitted that elements of Pakistan's ruling powers had backed the former mujahideen -- Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, in the Afghan civil war, reported The National Interest.
Pakistan did this with the aspiration to gain UN recognition for the government of Afghanistan. Another revelation he made was that Pakistan continues to back the Taliban-Haqqani campaign to retake Afghanistan.
The remarks by the Pakistan ISI officials came when in 2020 the intelligence community and military intelligence leaders from South and Central Asia gathered at a US Central Command conference in Tampa, Florida.
The topic of the discussion was unconventional warfare. However, the comments made by the Pakistan ISI officials had no impact whatsoever on the gathered intelligence community audience.
What follows is the signing of the Doha agreement. Afterwards, US President Joe Biden decided to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan. The US did not think twice about the security promises it made to Afghans. Finally, the US handed the country over to terrorists headquartered in Pakistan, reported The National Interest.
This is evident that even as clear evidence was out in the open, the United States refused to alter its policy.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen had told US Congress, "Pakistani duplicity puts in jeopardy not only the frayed US-Pakistani partnership against terrorism, but also the outcome to the decade-old war in Afghanistan. Success in Afghanistan is threatened by the Pakistani government's support for the Haqqani network of militants ... a 'veritable arm' of Pakistan's intelligence agency. ... Pakistani intelligence is using the Haqqanis and other extremist groups as its proxies inside Afghanistan."
"Pakistan's government has chosen to 'use violent extremism as an instrument of policy ... by exporting violence, they have eroded their internal security and their position in the region. They have undermined their international credibility and threatened their economic well-being.' he added, reported the media portal quoting CBS.
After the Taliban-Haqqani terrorists took Kabul in 2021, former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan declared Taliban "broke the shackles of slavery." However, it was too late for US as Kabul has already fallen to the Taliban. All voices exposing Pakistan of its take on terrorism issues fell on deaf ears in the United States.