With the winter season inching to its end, there are growing concerns over the Taliban’s upcoming offensive and the prospect of security in the country. The latest alarm came from Gen. John Campbell, the commander of the US-led Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan. Campbell has said that there would be a bloody year ahead if Afghanistan and Pakistan fail to do something concrete for peace within next two months. This is while the Afghan government rejected an assessment carried out by the US monitoring body for reconstruction of Afghanistan, SIGAR, that since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the group is more powerful than any time before. According to the assessment, the Taliban controls more areas than in the past while the government of Afghanistan currently maintains control over about 70 percent of the country. The Afghan government has acknowledged the intensification of the Taliban insurgency but has rejected that the group has extended areas under its control.
Despite the expected lull in the winter season, the Taliban have been trying to escalate their attacks on the capital Kabul and elsewhere across the country. The group has organized a number of bombings and suicide attacks in the city of Kabul and other provinces. The Monday attack on police headquarter in western Kabul left at least nine dead and many others injured. The recent Taliban attacks suggest the group’s efforts to keep the momentum of their violence until it is time for another seasonal offensive against government forces.  The government is also expecting a bloody Taliban offensive next year. As the upcoming Taliban offensive seems to be around the corner, the Afghan government has stepped up efforts for military preparations to confront the upcoming Taliban offensive. According to the officials, during the winter season, the government has been launching military operations across the country to suppress the Taliban and disrupt the group’s preparations for the militants’ upcoming offensive. Recently, Afghan defense officials assured the public over the readiness of the armed forces for tackling the Taliban’s next year offensive. The officials expressed optimisms for having the upper hand in the upcoming battle against the Taliban as the Afghan air force has been equipped with a number of new warplanes.  The last year battle against the Taliban proved highly challenging for Afghanistan’s national security forces as they had shouldered the burden of the war alone after the US-led NATO forces ended its combat mission in Afghanistan. The Taliban managed to wage bloodiest offensives against government forces across the country particularly in the north. The group had some notable military gains on the ground in the northern and eastern parts of the country while the militant groups extended their influence in insecure areas of Ghazni, Zabul and Helmand provinces. The momentary seizure of the Kunduz province by Taliban was the most spectacular victory for the group since 2001. The group managed to extend insurgency in areas that were relatively secure before 2014. The Afghan army and police forces were overwhelmed by the intensity and extent of the militant attacks across the country.
The Taliban would try to further intensify their military offensives against the Afghan government to build up their gains of their previous year’s insurgency. Taliban’s war tactics have profoundly changed compared to the group’s sporadic bombings, suicide attacks and group attacks before 2014. The Taliban now tend to organize more sophisticated and coordinated attacks than in the past. The Taliban has become able to wage more organized and conventional war against the Afghan army and police forces. The group has gained the ability to mount attacks that are larger in scale and fiercer in intensity. While in winter season, the group is keeping the pressure on by bombings and suicide attacks on public and government installations. The militant groups’ approach has shifted towards launching more robust and organized offensives against government forces along with sustained bomb and suicide attacks.  However, the government expects that better equipment of the Afghan security and defense forces would reverse the trend in favor of the government forces in the coming years. The Afghan officials say that Afghan air force is now ready to provide air support to the ground units fighting in the battlefields. The officials assert that the Taliban has no chance of sustaining against the Afghan army offensive and the aerial support of its air force.
The Taliban’s winter-season attacks on Kabul and elsewhere across the country could also be aimed at having the upper hand in the fighting before any peace talks starts. Afghanistan and Pakistan have speeded up efforts through the four-way initiative to bring the Taliban leaders to the table of negotiations. The Afghan government expects that peace talks would result in a ceasefire or a decrease in violence in the country. However, it is very unlikely that the Taliban stops the ongoing violence as they negotiate peace with the government. The Afghan government needs to stay realistic and extend military pressures against the militant groups to force the militants into a negotiated ceasefire.
The upcoming year will be a critical year for the Afghan national security forces. Despite the heightened efforts by Afghan and Pakistani governments for resumption of peace talks with the Taliban, it is highly unlikely to expect a ceasefire and decrease of violence in a near future. Therefore, the Afghan security forces need to brace for another year of fierce fighting across the country. Afghan security agencies need to be able to take the right strategy against the Taliban’s shifting war tactics.
As witnessed in the previous year, the Taliban will continue to wage more organized war, and in the meantime, will open many fronts across the country to stretch the capacity and resources of the Afghan security forces.
The ANSF, on one hand, will need to be able to mobilize quickly in event of Taliban opening new fronts in the war, and on the other hand, will need to sufficiently and timely reinforce the units engaged in the battles against the Taliban.