Welcome to The Azadi Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that unpacks the key issues in Afghanistan. To subscribe, click here.
I'm Abubakar Siddique, a senior correspondent at RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. Here's what I've been tracking and what I'm keeping an eye on in the days ahead.
The Key Issue
Afghanistan has briefly returned to the headlines as the United States heads toward a crucial November presidential election.
Republicans and Democrats blamed each other for failing to conclude an orderly withdrawal to end the conflict in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history.
In the September 10 presidential debate, Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris defended President Joe Biden's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. She blamed her opponent, former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump, for concluding the 2020 Doha agreement with the Taliban, which "bypassed the Afghan government."
In response, Trump defended the Doha deal as "a very good agreement." He blamed the Biden administration for losing soldiers during the withdrawal, leaving behind weapons, and not enforcing the terms of the agreement.
On September 8, a new investigative report by House Republicans blamed Biden's administration for the chaotic final withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Representative Michael McCaul (Republican-Texas), who led the probe as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the Biden administration "had the information and opportunity" to plan for the inevitable collapse of the Afghan government. Still, it chose, "optics over security," he said.
However, the State Department accused the committee of issuing partisan statements, cherry-picking facts, and obfuscating "the truth behind conjecture."
Why It's Important: America's war in Afghanistan -- particularly its disastrous end -- is unlikely to vanish from public memory and from political debates on how the U.S.-led war on terrorism was conducted and how it ended.
Another ongoing probe will likely shed even more light on the war, which lasted for over two decades, between 2001 and 2021.
The Afghanistan War Commission, a bipartisan legislative body comprised of former U.S. government officials with experience of the war, is probing the conflict. Its report is slated to be released in 2026.
Like the 9/11 Commission report, on which it is modeled, it is likely to attract a great deal of public interest and scrutiny.
What's Next: Renewed attention on Afghanistan will likely increase amid the partisan rancor ahead of the November 5 presidential election.
However, it is unlikely to prompt a significant change in Washington's policy toward the country in the short term.
What To Keep An Eye On
Afghanistan's Taliban rulers and Turkmen leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov inaugurated the construction of the Afghan section of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline.
On September 11, the Taliban held a groundbreaking ceremony for the long-delayed pipeline.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban's top spokesman, said Ashgabat will invest in building the pipeline, money that will be returned, the group says, when his government begins collecting transit fees estimated to be more than $500 million per annum.
Mujahid said that the pipeline inside Afghanistan will be built in three phases. The first phase, according to the spokesman, will connect the Turkmen border to the western Afghan city of Herat and will be built within two years from now. It will then begin supplying gas to the energy-starved country. The second phase will extend the pipeline to the southern province of Helmand. In the third phase, TAPI will go through the southern province of Kandahar and on to Pakistan.
The 1,800-kilometer pipeline will carry 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually through southern Afghanistan to Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan Province. From there, it will go through Pakistan's eastern Punjab Province to Fazilka in India's northwestern Punjab state.
Why It's Important: TAPI has long been touted as a significant regional energy project.
But insecurity in Afghanistan and the lack of international investment has prevented it from taking shape.
Given the Taliban's lack of transparency about significant infrastructure projects, it is still possible that TAPI will remain just a pipe dream.
That's all from me for now.
Don't forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you have. You can always reach us at azadi.english@rferl.org
Until next time,
Abubakar Siddique
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