President Ashraf Ghani has a visit to America urging the US troops not to leave Afghanistan in the lurch. In a joint news briefing with US Secretary of State John Kerry, President Ghani hoped that the talks would enable the two allies to implement their bilateral security agreement. “This is a remarkable opportunity for us to discuss issues in depth … and to put the strategic partnership agreement and the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) into an operational mode,” said Ashraf Ghani. US Secretary John Kerry said the two teams were ready to “spend a quiet, thoughtful day to (talk) about the remarkable transition that is taking place in Afghanistan”.

President Ghani’s main agenda was the request for extending the stay of US troops in Afghanistan.

Mr. Karzai had refused to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the United States and wanted US troops to leave the country as soon as possible. But President Ghani thanked the American nation for the help “so generously provided over the years” and said the best way for “reciprocating the gift means owning our problems, solving them, and asking of ourselves what we must do for ourselves and for the region”.

Ghani further stated that in Afghanistan, the IS was “posing a threat, but we are determined to make sure that they do not do the kind of atrocities that they’ve managed so well in Syria, Iraq, Libya or Yemen”. 

Throughout the day — in a speech at the Pentagon, during meetings with American officials and at a news conference at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland — Mr. Ghani stressed his commitment to combating militancy and ensuring that Afghanistan could one day support itself as a stable and functional democracy.

President Ghani then personally thanked two people in the crowd: Col. Sue Myers, retired, the widow of Maj. Gen. Harold J. Greene of the Army, who was shot and killed at Kabul’s military academy last year, and Capt. Jeremy Haynes of the Army, who was severely wounded in the same attack.

General Greene was the highest-ranking American military officer to die in a war zone since the Vietnam War, and Captain Haynes’s wounds were nearly fatal. “We recognize that there are millions of stories like theirs,” Mr. Ghani said. “Stories of duty, honor, sacrifice and sometimes of grief and tragedy because over 850,000 American troops and civilians and thousands more contractors have served and sacrificed in Afghanistan since 2001. And so have their families alongside them.”

He acknowledged that one of the biggest challenges faced by his six-month-old government was corruption. “It’s a bottomless pit,” said the former World Bank official who has lived in the US. “The good news is that it can be overcome.” Mr. Ghani said he had already gone after the Kabul Bank, “which was notorious … a case of fraud. From Day 1, it was established as a Ponzi scheme … all the books were fake”. He said he was going after corrupt politicians and politically connected people who used the bank “to get depositors’ money and use it as their own”.

Ghani’s visit to America appears to have aggravated the security situation across the country. As a result, reports say that 13 civilian passengers, including a woman, have been stopped and shot dead by unknown masked gunmen Monday night on Kabul-Ghazni highway. Two more were wounded in the shooting when unknown armed men stopped passengers’ vehicle and opened fire on them in central Maidan Wardak. Since the abduction of 31 passengers, the Kabul-Kandahar highway, lying on insecure Zabul, Ghazni and Wardak provinces have been highly unsafe over the past few weeks, according to reports.  And a suicide bombing left tens dead and injured behind in Kabul on Wednesday.

The close tie between Kabul and Washington will undermine the Afghanistan’s security on the grounds of militants’ dissatisfaction. The direct shooting of innocent travelers is an abnormal incident that has ever happened. The police chief of Maidan Wardak, Khalil Andrabi has said regarding the civilians’ death as, “The shooting that has occurred here are quite same like the brutal killings by Daesh in Iraq and Syria.”

In recent months, the graph of police and civilians’ killing is really high and the security has been fragile. Afghans seem dissatisfied with the plight of insecurity. The Kabul-Kandahar highway has changed into a worrisome issue for the passengers. A sense of fear has permeated the travelers – and the recent killing has compounded their chagrin more than ever before.

It is believed that the peace negotiation will not bear the desired fruit. The unmitigated militancy proves that the Taliban do not give the green light about the issue of peace. Violence and terrorist attacks continue unabated which target the police and noncombatants alike. Unknown masked gunmen, who are believed to be the ragtag Taliban operating under the guise of Islamic State (IS) group, have augmented their indiscriminate attacks showing no flexibility concerning the peace negotiation. Furthermore, the peace platitude will reach an impasse, if it has been initiated, with the stay of US troops. Hence, a provocative and uncertain attitude will remain futile. 

The government is supposed to pay serious attention to the plight of Afghanistan’s bleeding nation. Hope, the officials take every necessary step to release the 31 abductees and combat militancy effectively. The repeated violence and bloodshed is beyond the patience of Afghan nation.