An Ex-general in the Afghanistan Army has disclosed that he and many other former soldiers and politicians are preparing to launch a new war against the Taliban.

Lt. General Sami Sadat said that eight months of Taliban rule has convinced many Afghans that military action is the only way forward. He said operations could begin next month (May 2022) after the Islamic Eid festival, a time he plans to return to Afghanistan.

The Taliban took control of the country in a rapid offensive last August 2021. Speaking for the first time about the plans, Lt. General Sadat intimated that he and others would “do anything and everything in our powers to make sure Afghanistan is freed from the Taliban and a democratic system is re-established”, adding that “Until we get our freedom, until we get our free will, we will continue to fight”, while refusing to be drawn on a specific timeline.

The General underscored how the Taliban reintroduced increasingly harsh rule, including severe restrictions on the rights of women and girls, and said it is time to stop their authoritarian order and start a new chapter.

“What we see in Afghanistan in eight months of Taliban rule has been nothing but more religious restrictions, misquotation, misinterpretation and misuse of the scripts from the Holy Koran for political purposes.”
Lt. General Sami Sadat

An Initial Grace Period

He initially planned to give the Taliban 12 months to see if they would change, but said “Unfortunately, every day you wake up the Taliban have had something new to do, torturing people, killing, disappearances, food shortages, child malnutrition”.

General Sadat said he receives hundreds of messages daily from Afghans asking him what he was going to do about it. But in a country shredded by more than forty years of conflict, many Afghans are weary of war, desperate to leave or struggling to survive in the midst of a deepening economic crisis. The UN classifies Afghanistan as a country marked by “combat fatigue” with millions on the brink of starvation. Many in rural areas which bore the brunt of NATO’s war against the Taliban have welcomed the relative calm now that US and Afghan warplanes have left the skies and Taliban attacks have ended.

A Pending Accusation

Lt. Gen. Sadat, who commanded Afghan government forces in the Southern province of Helmand (one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan) in the last months of the Taliban offensive, is also accused of ordering attacks which killed civilians. But when he was questioned about the charges, he denied them.

In August last year (2021) Lt. Gen Sadat was appointed to head the Afghan Special Forces and arrived in Kabul the day the Taliban swept in, compelling him and his Commander-in-Chief, President Ashraf Ghani, to flee the country. When asked whether there is an alternative to another war, Lt Gen Sadat intimated that he hoped that moderate Taliban, known to be uncomfortable with a growing raft of restrictions reminiscent of draconian Taliban rule in 1990s, could be part of a new government.

“We are not against the Taliban”, he said, pointing out that he is just against their current “textbook,” describing an Afghanistan where “everyone fits in, not a country only for Taliban”. In recent weeks, an audio message in which General Sadat spoke about an armed fight against the Taliban with the aim of “re-liberating” Afghanistan was leaked to the media.

In the past, armed groups, including the Taliban, won Afghan wars with the support of neighbouring countries, a foothold in the country, and foreign funding. However, it is unclear whether Lt. Gen. Sadat’s allies, as well as the many other armed groups which have been forming, have any of these assets.