Before the elections at the end of the year, US President Donald Trump repeatedly expressed interest in bringing US forces home as quickly as possible. He has already promised to reduce that figure to 5,000 by November, his lowest level since the invasion began in 2001. Despite the peace agreement between the United States and the Taliban, insurgent attacks on Afghan security forces have reportedly intensified in the country. In the 45 days following the agreement (between March 1 and April 15, 2020), the Taliban carried out more than 4,500 attacks in Afghanistan, an increase of more than 70% over the same period last year. [108] More than 900 Afghan security forces were killed during this period, compared to about 520 in the same period the previous year. Meanwhile, as a result of the agreement, the number of offensives and airstrikes by Afghan and U.S. forces against the Taliban has decreased significantly, from about 1,660 in the same period last year. Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said that while the Taliban had stopped carrying out attacks against U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, the violence was still “unacceptable” and “not conducive to a diplomatic solution.” He added: “We have continued to carry out defensive attacks to defend our partners in the region, and we will continue to do so.” [108] Intra-Afghanistan negotiations did not begin as planned on 10 March 2020. But that day, Ghani signed a decree ordering the Afghan government to begin releasing 1,500 Taliban prisoners on March 14, if they agreed to sign pledges guaranteeing that they would not return to combat[115] If they did not sign the pledges, the decree would not enter into force. [115] On the same day, the United States began withdrawing some troops. [116] Despite the fact that the terms of the peace agreement were unanimously supported by the UN Security Council,[117] sources close to the Taliban, including Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, later announced that the group had rejected Ghani`s prisoner exchange decree and had always insisted on the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners. [118] [119] [120] On 14 March 2020, Javid Fayçal, a spokesman for the National Security Council, announced that President Ghani had delayed the release of Taliban prisoners, stressing the need to review the list of prisoners, thereby undermining the peace agreement between the US government and the Taliban. [121] Another problem is that the recent Afghan presidential elections were contested and led to a divided and dysfunctional government in Kabul.
As two opponents declare themselves the winners, no one is responsible in Kabul anymore. Since the next step in the peace agreement is to hold talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government, a divided and broken government in Kabul complicates this next step.