Why attack Afghan civilians? Creating chaos rewards Taliban

Because both sides treated Afghanistan’s governance as a matter of all-or-nothing survival, the Taliban had every incentive to create chaos.

“I see a lot of U.S. complicity in this,” said Frances Z. Brown, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former member of the National Security Council.

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With the Taliban unable to win outright but the Americans unwilling to admit defeat, she said, each side has privileged short-term escalations. That has validated the Taliban’s view that the group must undermine the state, including through attacks in Kabul that expose the government’s weakness.

“Trump’s strategy is based on a fighting machine — to send more troops,” said Mullah Hamid, a Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan. “If they are giving priority to the military option, we are not weak. We can reach our target and hit the enemy.”

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