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Afghan civilians take up arms against Taliban as foreign troops depart | Afghanistan

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Haji Ghoulam Farouq Siawshani watched the Taliban rampage across northern Afghanistan this month, weighing up the threat from militants on his doorstep. Then, 10 days ago, the former oil trader turned militia commander issued a call to arms.

“Where the Taliban go, they bring destruction, and they are one kilometre away from my village,” he told the Guardian. “We decided to respond.”

He now leads a few dozen men he armed with ageing Kalashnikovs, in Gozara district, just south of the ancient trade and cultural centre of Herat, on the country’s western border with Iran.

Foreign troops are racing to leave Afghanistan ahead of the final departure of the US military, who led and underpinned the foreign mission for nearly 20 years. They are now expected to be gone by the middle of July, and most of their Nato allies have already departed, leaving only British and Turkish forces still on the ground.

From Washington to Germany, generals and officials have claimed “mission accomplished” as their last men and women head home.

It is a message that may play well at home, but rings hollow in Afghanistan, where violence is spiralling and the Taliban threat grows by the day.

At least 50 of Afghanistan’s nearly 400 districts have fallen to the Taliban since May, the UN says. In the north, far from the group’s traditional southern stronghold, they have seized dozens, with eight falling over just two days. In several districts security forces surrendered without a fight, or elders negotiated a transfer of control.

The militants now control or contest more than half of rural Afghanistan. The cities tend to be bulwarks of security and anti-militant sentiment, but the Taliban are closing in on several, and are expected to mount a serious military push for some of the provincial capitals once the US withdrawal is complete.

“We have been betrayed by the Americans,” said Jawad, one of the militia commanders under Siawshani, who two weeks ago had a steady job as a mechanic. “We are prepared for the situation to get a lot worse.”

Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers raise their national flag at the Italian Camp Arena military base, after Italian forces left. Photograph: Hoshang Hashimi/AFP/Getty Images

Even the departing head of US forces, Gen Austin S Miller, charged with ending the US’s longest war, admits he will be leaving behind a country on the brink. Trillions of dollars and more than 2,300 US military deaths did not buy security.

“A civil war is certainly a path that can be visualised if this continues on the trajectory it’s on right now, that should be of concern to the world,” he told journalists in a rare news conference in the fast-emptying Nato headquarters in Kabul.

He has refused to be drawn on when the US departure will be complete. The deadline is officially 11 September, but the US made clear it was aiming for July, and officials told Reuters this week the final departures were expected within days. A small force of 650 troops will stay on to protect the embassy.

Allies who rely on the US for logistics including air support have mostly packed up already. On Wednesday, as Siawshani discussed tactics with the district police chief in Gozara, the last of the Italian troops who operated out of nearby Herat airbase for two decades touched down at home. Germany’s last soldiers arrived back the same day.

Peace talks in Doha, launched as part of the US withdrawal agreement, have all but stalled. Afghan officials accuse the Taliban of engaging in bad faith, to provide cover for the departure of foreign forces. With intense fighting under way, and their military position improving almost daily, there is little expectation that will change, at least in the near-term.

Joe Biden, the US president, promised his Afghan counterpart, Ashraf Ghani, ongoing backup for the huge financial cost of the country’s security efforts, and training and other technical support from outside the country. But Miller and others have refused to be drawn on how much help they can offer the embattled army and police.

Gen Austin S Miller said: ‘A civil war is certainly a path that can be visualised if this continues on the trajectory it’s on right now.’ Photograph: Ahmad Seir/AP

“What I don’t want to do is speculate what that [support] looks like in the future,” he said. One of the biggest questions is about air support, which has been vital to staving off major Taliban advances in recent years, particularly on cities such as Kunduz.

Afghanistan runs a small air force, which carries out attack operations and medical evacuations, and supplies remote and besieged outposts. But Afghan pilots and aircraft are badly stretched by the pace of the war, and for maintenance they rely on US contractors, whose future in the country is unclear. There is some support from American bomber planes, and armed drones now fly into Afghan skies from beyond its borders, but they reportedly struggle to coordinate strikes with troops on the ground.

“The Taliban launched the attack at 10pm and we were fighting until 6am. We called our commanders, we called Kabul, we called the Herat governor begging for air support, but no one arrived,” said a commando who was besieged in Obe district before it fell to the Taliban.

“In the morning we called and said we don’t need airstrikes, just pick up the dead and injured, but they never came either,” added the commando, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions.

And so as officials cast around for ways to protect their population, they are embracing militias, after years of western-backed efforts to disarm the country’s unofficial bands of armed men. After the Guardian’s meeting with Siawshani, he sat down with the district governor and police chief to discuss tactics and support.

In a different Afghanistan, the one the US once dreamed of building, the young men waiting outside for him would have had different futures. Salim Shah graduated from high school last year, and planned to study law at university. Now Jawad has given up his job as a mechanic, he is unsure how he will support his two children.

But collectively they decided that the fight for their country had become critical. Many have already lost brothers, cousins and neighbours to the Taliban. “Our main aim is protecting our family, our relatives and our land,” Jawad said.

While this iteration of the long Afghan civil war will be his first time in a conflict, many of those leading the militias were battle hardened in past cycles of violence. Siawshani first picked up a gun with the Mujahideen in the 1980s to fight the Soviets. Among his key lieutenants is Rahmatullah Afzali, a retired general who spent over three decades in the government army that Siawshani fought.

Afzali raises an eyebrow at their current alliance. “When he was doing jihad, I worked for [the then president] Najibullah. Now the Taliban have brought us together,” he says with a grin. But never has the fight been so critical.

“I have fought all over Afghanistan, I was injured 17 times, and I have never felt under as much pressure as the last four months, since Biden said he was giving Afghanistan to the Taliban.”

Akhtar Mohammad Makoii contributed reporting

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Al Qaeda promises ‘war on all fronts’ against America as Biden pulls out of Afghanistan

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His name and that of his terrorist network, al Qaeda, came to define an era of US reaction and retribution dwarfing any previous counter-terrorism policy.

America’s “war on terror” is about to enter a new phase as President Joe Biden prepares to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of 9/11, but now al Qaeda claims its war with America is far from over.

In an exclusive interview with CNN conducted through intermediaries, two al Qaeda operatives tell CNN that “war against the US will be continuing on all other fronts unless they are expelled from the rest of the Islamic world.”

In the past al Qaeda has rarely responded to questions, choosing instead to hide behind its own self-serving propaganda, dodging even the most distant scrutiny. It’s unclear why the group has chosen to do so now.

Terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank, editor-in-chief of West Point’s CTC Sentinel, who reviewed al Qaeda’s answers, says it is possible “they feel buoyed by the Biden administration’s decision to pull out troops from Afghanistan, but they may also be seeking to deflect attention from the many recent losses.”

America’s longest war will end

Today, the terror group that once roared to world attention is reduced to a whimper, but it is far from dead. And now says it’s planning a comeback after US forces leave Afghanistan, by partnering once again with the Taliban.

In its response to CNN, two members of al Qaeda’s subcontinent broadcast branch heap praise on the Taliban for keeping the fight against America alive. “Thanks to Afghans for the protection of comrades-in-arms, many such jihadi fronts have been successfully operating in different parts of the Islamic world for a long time,” the spokesperson says.

By September 11 this year, America’s longest war that aimed to neutralize the terror group will formally end, with President Biden declaring, “Bin laden is dead and al Qaeda is degraded, in Afghanistan. And it’s time to end the forever war.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken agreed, telling ABC’s “This Week” earlier this month: “We went to Afghanistan 20 years ago, and we went because we were attacked on 9/11, and we went to take on those who had attacked us on 9/11, and to make sure that Afghanistan would not again become a haven for terrorism directed at the United States or any of our allies and partners,” Blinken said. “And we achieved the objectives that we set out to achieve.”

What made the exit possible is America’s February 2020 deal with the Afghan Taliban in which the group promised to cut the ties with al Qaeda that caused the US to invade Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks.

Through journalistic intermediaries, CNN stringer Saleem Mehsud reached out to al Qaeda for its reaction to Biden’s move to pull out troops from Afghanistan, and rather than ignore him as it has done so many times in the past, representatives answered.

Their reply suggests the Taliban is being less than honest with Biden’s administration, and that the US troop drawdown could be based on a sham.

CNN has reached out to the Taliban for comment on its relationship with al Qaeda, but it has not responded, rendering al Qaeda’s response to CNN a significant insight to what may happen after US troops pull out.

Peter Bergen, CNN terrorism expert and author of several books on Osama Bin Laden, read al Qaeda’s reply to CNN and judged it “genuine.”

Bergen points to another part of al Qaeda’s response highlighting continuing ties with the Taliban, in which it said: “At the same time TTP [Pakistani Taliban] and AQ have relations of Islamic brotherhood which was and still intact and same is the case with the Afghan Taliban.”

He notes, “This confirms what the UN has been saying that, ‘the Taliban regularly consulted’ with al Qaeda during its negotiations with the United States while guaranteeing that they ‘would honor their historical ties’ with the terrorist group.”

Somewhat ambiguously, al Qaeda also claims no interest in using Afghanistan itself as a launch pad for future attacks because it no longer needs it. “It did not need Afghanistan and there is no such intention in the future,” the group says. However, as Cruickshank points out, “a statement of intent from an anonymous operative is hardly binding on the group.”

Terror group eclipsed by ISIS

In its reply to CNN al Qaeda declares Afghanistan its victory. “The Americans are now defeated,” and draw a parallel to the Soviet Union’s withdrawal three decades ago from the country and its subsequent collapse: “The US war in Afghanistan played key role in hitting US economy.”

That line echoes the rhetoric of bin Laden himself, who promoted the oversimplified idea that the Soviets bankrupted themselves in Afghanistan. The cost of the US wars on terror has reached into the trillions, but the 9/11 attacks did not bring on US economic collapse. Al Qaeda admits the toll the war has taken on them, saying it sent “most” al Qaeda central fighters to Syria where “some of them have been martyred in recent years.”

It also admits that bin Laden’s death at the hands of Seal Team 6 did weaken al Qaeda, allowing the more nihilistic Islamists, ISIS (Daesh), to become established. “They benefited from the martyrdom of Sheikh Osama, Sheikh Atiyahullah, Sheikh Abu Yahya Al-Libi (may God have mercy on them) and many others.”

In recent years ISIS’s atrocities and attacks it inspired in Europe have all but eclipsed al Qaeda. But the latter presents this as a “tactical silence,” claiming it is not “broken” and is instead “fighting a long war” with “different stages.”

Al Qaeda’s current leader, the less charismatic Ayman al-Zawahiri, lives a near virtual existence and is heard from only in rare propaganda releases. However, the group still sees itself as a lead for other jihadists. Franchises of Al Qaeda operate in Yemen, Syria, Somalia and northern Africa, among other places.
In the reply to CNN about its role in Pakistan and Afghanistan, it claims to have “masterminded” the 2009 attack killing seven CIA operatives at their base near Khowst in Afghanistan. It said that at the time the Pakistani Taliban, the TTP, which was also known to be involved in the attack, was the junior partner and “was in its learning stages, many mistakes were made by them.”

Bergen says, “This fits with the [bin Laden] documents in Abbottabad in which AQ leaders treat TTP as a junior partner who they can boss around (even though AQ is a tiny organization and the TTP a large one, relatively speaking).”

Biden appears to be aware of the potential for Taliban duplicity and al Qaeda’s spread, saying in his speech to Congress on Wednesday that “we will maintain an over-the-horizon capability to suppress future threats to the homeland.”

“But make no mistake — the terrorist threat has evolved beyond Afghanistan since 2001 and we will remain vigilant against threats to the United States, wherever they come from. Al Qaeda and ISIS are in Yemen, Syria, Somalia, and other places in Africa and the Middle East and beyond.”

Afghanistan could be free for al Qaeda again

Today al Qaeda appears proud of its influence over the TTP. “Now the organization of Pakistani Taliban and their leadership not only moving forward in the light of Sharia but also making better decisions based on past experiences and recent successes have been made possible by the same unity and adherence to Sharia and Wisdom.”

It’s unclear if this is a reference to the TTP’s first major assault in several years in which it struck a hotel where the Chinese ambassador was reported to be staying in Quetta last week. Pakistani security officials tell CNN that China’s ambassador was not the target, but even so it highlights that al Qaeda is regaining strength.

If the Taliban is as close to al Qaeda as that group claims, and the UN assesses, then AQ’s 2,000-word communication with CNN implies that rather being ceasefire partners with the US, the Taliban is as close to abetting al Qaeda in war against America as it ever was.

Al Qaeda is making clear the country that was once its base to plan the deadliest-ever attack on American soil is free for it to use again. “The United States is not a problem for our Afghan brothers, but due to the sacrifices in the Afghan war, the Americans are now defeated. Whether Republicans or Democrats — both have made final decision to pull out from the Afghan war.”

If the Taliban keeps its promises to Biden, then all this is just al Qaeda propaganda, but if it doesn’t, all bets about the future threat it poses are off.

This story has been updated.

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Three Women Working to Vaccinate Children Are Shot Dead in Afghanistan

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KABUL, Afghanistan — Three health workers, all women, working for the government’s polio vaccine campaign were shot dead in Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, local officials said, only weeks after three women working in television were killed in the same city.

The women, all in their 20s, were going about their jobs in the bustling town near the border with Pakistan when they were gunned down in two separate attacks.

Semin, 24, and Basira, 20, who like many Afghans both went by only one name, were shot and killed by two gunmen as they entered a house in Jalalabad to vaccinate the children who lived there, the governor’s office said.

The two were going door to door in the city, a practice the Taliban have banned in the past in areas under their control.

It was Semin’s first vaccination campaign, said Ahmad Faisal Nizami, the victim’s cousin. She had recently been married and had graduated from a teacher training college.

Negina, 24, a supervisor for the polio vaccine campaign, which started in Afghanistan on Monday, was shot and killed about an hour later elsewhere in the city.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the killings.

The Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, rejected any involvement in the incident in a WhatsApp message.

Afghanistan, which recorded 56 cases of polio in 2020, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, is one of two countries where the disease has not been eradicated, trailing behind Pakistan.

Around the same time as Tuesday’s shootings, there was an explosion at the city’s regional hospital, officials said, in front of the compound where the vaccines are stored. There were no casualties, but windows were shattered.

The latest killings — part of a wave of targeted assassinations often singling out women, journalists, professionals, activists and doctors — happened at a fraught moment for Afghanistan as the Taliban have made steady military gains, and relentlessly attack those deemed as collaborating with the Afghan government. Additionally, remnants of the Islamic State operating in the region have focused on carrying out fewer large-scale bombings and more smaller but targeted assaults.

The United States has yet to definitively say whether it will meet the May 1 deadline for withdrawing all American forces, per an agreement the Trump administration signed with the Taliban in February 2020.

“My niece Basira was a poor girl,” said Haji Moqbel Ahmad, a tribal elder in Jalalabad, who added that the woman had not been threatened before. “She was shot and killed while she was doing her job.”

Basira, a vaccine worker since her teens, had been enlisted for a five-day vaccine campaign for which she would be paid less than $30, officials said.

The month began with the assassination of three women who worked for a television station in Jalalabad. A female television and radio presenter from the same station was gunned down in much the same way in December. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for both incidents.

The New York Times documented the deaths of at least 136 civilians and 168 security force members in such targeted killings in 2020, more than nearly any other year of the war. So far, 2021 has not seen any reprieve from the same kind of violence.

The Taliban are increasing pressure on government and society, asserting dominance as stuttering, intermittent negotiations take place to settle the Afghan conflict.

Jalalabad has been among the hardest hit cities. A day after the television-worker killings, a female doctor there was killed by a roadside bomb.

Ross Wilson, the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Kabul, denounced Tuesday’s killings.

“Such attacks are a direct affront to Afghans’ dream of building a better life for their children,” Mr. Wilson wrote on Twitter. “My deepest condolences for the victims’ families as we call for justice,” he wrote. “Attacking vaccinators is as heartless as it is inexplicable.”

Humanitarian agencies also expressed outrage. Henrietta Fore, the executive director of Unicef, issued a statement calling the victims “courageous vaccinators who were at the forefront of efforts to combat the spread of polio and keep Afghanistan’s children safe from this disabling disease.”

Zabihullah Ghazi contributed reporting from Jalalabad, and Fahim Abed from Kabul.



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Afghanistan: Biden running out of time to make decision on future of US mission as situation worsens

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Though the nominal deadline for a US withdrawal is May 1st, several defense officials told CNN that the US-led NATO alliance would like to see decisions taken no later than April 1 because of the challenges of removing US weaponry and equipment, amid concerns about some of it falling into the hands of the Taliban.

Since 9/11, the United States has poured $864 billion and 2,400 lives into Afghanistan in pursuit of a noble idea: turning one of the poorest, most dangerous countries in the world into a self-sufficient democratic state led by a strong, stable Afghan government that cannot be used as a staging ground to plan and launch terrorist attacks against other states.

But those goals have seldom been more out of reach, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko said following the release of his latest report on the greatest risks to the US efforts in the country.

“A corrupt, narcotic fueled Afghan state will never be a reliable partner able to protect itself or the interests of the United States and other donors,” Sopko said bluntly Wednesday, presenting his report to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The single goal of the Afghan government right now is “survival,” Sopko said.

The conditions necessary for a successful conclusion to US involvement in Afghanistan and an end to America’s 20-year war are crumbling, the authors of the SIGAR report wrote. Afghanistan has only grown more violent since the signing of an agreement with the Taliban in February 2020, as Taliban attacks on government forces have intensified amidst a wave of assassinations of prominent officials, activists, journalists, and more.

The country’s endemic corruption actively subverts US reconstruction efforts and may cause them to outright fail. The illegal opium trade in Afghanistan has flourished, as the US and other countries have curtailed counternarcotics efforts and the Afghan government does little to impede the trade. And then the coronavirus pandemic wiped out the modest 3% growth in the Afghan economy in 2019.

“The path forward for reconstruction — whatever the outcome of current peace negotiations between the Taliban insurgents and the Afghan government — has never been more fraught with risk,” the report found. The government, heavily reliant on international donors, will struggle to sustain itself or its armed forces in the event of a complete US troop withdrawal or a further decrease in foreign aid. The Afghan government relies not only on the security and training offered by US forces, but by the manpower and expertise provided by thousands of US and other contractors.

Biden needs to decide in weeks

The focus is on May 1, the date upon which the US is supposed to withdraw all forces from Afghanistan under a peace agreement signed between the Trump administration and the Taliban. But any decision, from a complete withdrawal to an increase in troop levels, will require planning and coordination weeks ahead of that date.

If the Biden administration completes the drawdown and removes the remaining 2,500 troops from Afghanistan, it will require a massive effort to either remove or destroy weapons, equipment, and facilities that could fall into the hands of the Taliban, the defense officials told CNN. While some gear and sites could be turned over to the Afghan government, the uncertain future is hanging over all decisions for now.

This means there is a desire that decisions are taken no later than April 1, the defense officials said. Once a potential full withdrawal is less than 30 days away, it could become more likely that arms and equipment will have to be destroyed, possibly through the use of explosives.

The challenge is one of geography. While as much equipment as possible would be put aboard aircraft and flown out in a final 30-day window, it is not feasible because of Afghanistan’s mountainous, rugged terrain to withdraw over roads, and there are no nearby ports. In contrast, during the 2011 withdrawal from Iraq, convoys could move relatively easily on a southerly route out of the country to Kuwait.

But for now, there is no clarity on next steps.

“We’re working closely with Afghan parties to encourage progress on a political settlement and a comprehensive ceasefire,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday. “We’re also working diplomatically to mobilize regional and international support for peace. There is a broad and longstanding consensus that there is no military solution to this conflict, and that the political solution … must be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned.”

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby has said that no final decision has been made and the interagency review of options and policies continues.

US has proposed a power-sharing agreement

The Biden administration has proposed to the Afghan government that they enter an interim power-sharing agreement with the Taliban in a letter from Secretary of State Antony Blinken to President Ashraf Ghani.

Blinken also proposed that Afghanistan’s neighbors, including Iran, take on a greater role and warned that the Biden administration continues to review whether to withdraw US troops.

The letter, sent via US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad, offers the first real look at the Biden administration’s thinking about Afghanistan, and appeared to reflect frustration as Blinken wrote that he wanted Ghani “to understand the urgency of my tone.”

The situation in Afghanistan is a thorny one for Biden, who opposed an increase in the US presence there during the Obama administration and has said he wants to wind down US involvement in the nearly 20-year conflict. Biden could face domestic criticism if he does not follow through on the withdrawal, but at the same time, Afghanistan remains unstable, the Taliban have increased their control of wider swaths of the country and the gains made by women and girls are at risk.

The US has “plans on the shelf” on how to accomplish a full withdrawal by May 1 if the order comes, a defense official told CNN. Those plans include giving some material to the Afghans, shipping some home and destroying some, the official said. Even with the troop level down from 13,000 personnel roughly one year ago to 2,500 troops now, the rough calculation is it would require a significant number of aircraft and a lengthy airlift effort.

However, there could be a mix of decisions including extending the mission beyond May 1, or some type of negotiated agreement to permit a lengthier withdrawal.

The reduced troop levels — the lowest since 2001 — offer a key benefit. Because of multiple drawdowns in recent months, years of excess inventory has already been reduced, the official said. Less clear is how long it would take NATO allies to withdraw their 8,000 troops and material on a quick turnaround.

But peace is not a panacea for Afghanistan, Sopko warned. A comprehensive peace agreement may require an additional $5.2 billion in new foreign aid through 2024, the report said.

“Rather than a peace dividend, the international donor community may instead get stuck with the bill,” Sopko said.

CNN’s Nicole Gaouette, Kylie Atwood and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.

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China and Russia threats, Afghanistan war drags

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WASHINGTON – Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will meet with members of the world’s most powerful military alliance on Wednesday for the first time since joining the Biden administration.

NATO meets Wednesday and Thursday to discuss an array of challenges facing the 30-member group. The virtual meetings will be a glimpse into President Joe Biden’s foreign policy agenda and comes on the heels of his calls to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with America’s closest allies.

“When we strengthen our alliances we amplify our power as well as our ability to disrupt threats before they reach our shores,” Biden said during a speech at the State Department. “America cannot afford to be absent any longer on the world stage,” he added.

Biden’s message broke sharply from his predecessor’s “America First” policy, which on occasion seemed to vex NATO members.

Under former President Donald Trump, Kay Bailey Hutchison served as the connective tissue between Washington and the alliance in her role as the U.S. Ambassador to NATO.

“There was never a rift or tension among the ambassadors and me,” she told CNBC when asked if the alliance was impacted by Trump’s approach.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg greets NATO’s US Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison on the second day of the NATO summit, in Brussels, on July 12, 2018.

Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt | AFP | Getty Images

“Now, that’s not to say that some of the allies weren’t upset with what the president had said or done on a given day. But overall we had a great relationship and always kept everyone informed,” Hutchison explained, elaborating on the wider policy goals shared by NATO members.

“I think the alliance is strong and unified and I think everyone knows that the U.S. is essential in NATO,” the former Senator from Texas said, adding that the United States will continue to take a prominent leadership role within the group.

Ahead of the virtual meetings this week, Hutchison shared what she expects will be high on the alliance’s agenda.

Addressing power competition

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, attend the Tsinghua Universitys ceremony, at Friendship Palace on April 26, 2019 in Beijing, China.

Kenzaburo Fukuhara | Getty Images

The tension between Beijing and Washington soared under the Trump administration, which escalated a trade war and worked to ban Chinese technology companies from doing business in the United States.

Over the past four years, the Trump administration blamed China for a wide range of grievances, including intellectual property theft, unfair trade practices and recently, the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden previously said that his approach to China would be different from his predecessor’s in that he would work more closely with allies in order to mount pushback against Beijing.

“We will confront China’s economic abuses,” Biden explained in a speech at the State Department, describing Beijing as America’s “most serious competitor.”

“But we’re also ready to work with Beijing when it’s in America’s interest to do so. We’ll compete from a position of strength by building back better at home and working with our allies and partners.”

Hutchison said that many of the issues the Biden administration looks to address with China also fall into shared interests held by the NATO alliance.

“We have been really focusing on China much more in the last two years,” Hutchison said. “When the Belt and Road initiative came out and then, of course, the crackdown on Hong Kong, Covid-19 and the lack of transparency on that, all really brought China into the NATO radar.”

If all of us speak with one voice, we can have more influence on China.”

Kay Bailey Hutchison

Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO

Hutchison explained that the members will discuss the great power competition, which is used to describe the friction between the United States and China in shaping security practices and setting trade norms worldwide. Russia is sometimes included as an element in the power struggle.

She also said that as the Pentagon began to stand up a new military branch dedicated to space, the United States Space Force, the NATO alliance also expanded its mission and declared space a security domain.

“That was because China is doing a lot up there with satellites and artificial intelligence, and we are now having to focus on that and begin to build deterrence as best we can,” Hutchison said of the move by NATO leaders to include space in its security portfolio.

“Cyber and hybrid, of course, is another big area where both China and Russia are active,” she added.

‘There was never any let-up in NATO regarding Russia’

Russian President Vladimir Putin enters the St. George Hall at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow.

Mikhail Klimentyev | AFP | Getty Images

Like China, Biden has also said that the United States will have a different approach in dealing with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I made it very clear to President Putin in a manner very different from my predecessor that the days of the United States rolling over in the face of Russian aggressive actions, interfering with our elections, cyberattacks, poisoning its citizens, are over,” Biden said earlier this month.

“We will be more effective in dealing with Russia when we work in coalition and coordination with other like-minded partners,” he added.

The White House is currently reviewing other maligned Russian actions including the SolarWinds hack, reports of Russian bounties on American troops in Afghanistan and potential election interference.

“There was never any let-up in NATO regarding Russia,” Hutchison told CNBC when asked about the alliance’s approach. “And I don’t think there’ll be a change in course because I think we’ve been tough about Russia,” she added.

Hutchison said that in the wake of the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the NATO alliance was swift to condemn Moscow’s actions.

“There was a unanimous vote of our allies calling out Russia on the Navalny issue when it was first, of course, clear that Russia had poisoned this man,” Hutchison said.

Last summer, Navalny was medically evacuated to Germany from a Russian hospital after he became ill following reports that something was added to his tea. Russian doctors treating Navalny denied that the Kremlin critic had been poisoned and blamed his comatose state on low blood sugar levels.

A still image taken from video footage shows Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is accused of flouting the terms of a suspended sentence for embezzlement, during the announcement of a court verdict in Moscow, Russia February 2, 2021.

Simonovsky District Court | via Reuters

In September, the German government said that the 44-year-old Russian dissident was poisoned by a chemical nerve agent, describing the toxicology report as providing “unequivocal evidence.” The nerve agent was in the family of Novichok, which was developed by the Soviet Union.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied having a role in Navalny’s poisoning.

Last month, Navalny flew to Russia from Berlin, Germany where he spent nearly half a year recovering. He was arrested at passport control and later sentenced to more than two years in prison.

Hutchison also explained that the alliance will need to discuss the messy, multibillion-dollar deal between Russia and Turkey, which led to unprecedented U.S. sanctions on the NATO member.

In 2017, Turkish President Recep Erdogan brokered a deal reportedly worth $2.5 billion with Putin for the S-400 missile system.

The S-400, a mobile surface-to-air missile system, is said to pose a risk to the NATO alliance as well as the F-35, America’s most expensive weapons platform.

In short, these two big-ticket weapons systems that Turkey hoped to add to its budding arsenal could be used against each other.

You can’t work out a Russian missile defense system in the NATO alliance and have business as usual.”

Kay Bailey Hutchison

Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO

A Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system.

Sergei Malgavko | TASS via Getty Images

In October, the Pentagon and State Department issued strong rebukes following reports that Turkey’s military tested the Russia-made missile system.

In December, Washington slapped sanctions on the country.

“It’s a huge problem and it’s one that Turkey kept thinking, apparently, that this could all be worked out. But you can’t work out a Russian missile defense system in the NATO alliance and have business as usual,” Hutchison explained to CNBC.

“Everyone in NATO knows it’s a problem and Turkey needs to find an off-ramp for this,” she added.

The looming troop withdrawal from Afghanistan

U.S. Marines and Georgian Army soldiers run to the extraction point during Operation Northern Lion II in Helmand province, Afghanistan, July 3, 2013.

U.S. Marine Corps photo

The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have cost U.S. taxpayers more than $1.57 trillion since Sept. 11, 2001, according to a Defense Department report.

The war in Afghanistan, which is now America’s longest conflict, began 19 years ago and has cost U.S. taxpayers $193 billion, according to the Pentagon.

Last February the United States brokered a deal with the Taliban that would usher in a permanent cease-fire and reduce the U.S. military’s footprint from approximately 13,000 troops to 8,600 by mid-July last year. By May 2021, all foreign forces would leave the war-weary country, according to the deal.

There are about 2,500 U.S. troops in the country. Currently, the U.S. is slated to withdraw American service members from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021.

“I told all the Biden people when we were in transition that they were really going to have to make the decision about whether they want to draw down by the first of May or draw down over a different time period or not draw down and keep troops there,” Hutchison explained to CNBC.

“All the vibes I’m getting, without talking to anyone specifically, is that they are going to leave troops there and not draw down further,” she added.

Read more: Pentagon uncertain on pullback date for U.S. troops in Afghanistan

Last month, the Pentagon said the U.S. troop drawdown in Afghanistan would be contingent on the Taliban’s commitments to uphold a peace deal brokered last year.

“The Taliban have not met their commitments,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters during a Jan. 28 press briefing.

Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby speaks at press conference at the Pentagon January 28, 2021 in Arlington,Virginia.

Yasin Ozturk | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

He added that Austin was reviewing the matter and had discussed the path forward in the war-torn country with NATO allies and partners.

“It is under discussion with our partners and allies to make the best decisions going forward on our force presence in Afghanistan,” Kirby said, adding that the Biden administration has not yet made a determination.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg previously warned that leaving Afghanistan too soon or in an uncoordinated effort could present unintended consequences for the world’s largest military organization.

“Afghanistan risks becoming once again a platform for international terrorists to plan and organize attacks on our homelands. And ISIS could rebuild in Afghanistan the terror caliphate it lost in Syria and Iraq,” the NATO chief said, referring to Islamic State militants. 

In February, the Afghanistan Study Group, a bipartisan congressionally mandated panel under the United States Institute of Peace, recommended keeping U.S. troops in the war-torn country “in order to give the peace process sufficient time to produce an acceptable result.”

The group wrote, in a report released on February 3, that the United States has a significant interest in safeguarding Afghanistan from “becoming again a safe haven for terrorists.”

“We believe that a U.S. withdrawal will provide the terrorists an opportunity to reconstitute and our judgment is that reconstitution will take place within about 18 to 36 months,” former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford told a virtual United States Institute of Peace audience. Dunford, a retired four-star Marine general, co-chairs the study group.

“We also conclude and there will be no surprise to those who follow Afghanistan, that the Afghan forces are highly dependent on U.S. funding in operational support and they’ll continue to be for some time to come,” Dunford said.

NATO joined the international security effort in Afghanistan in 2003 and currently has more than 7,000 troops in the country. The NATO mission in Afghanistan was launched after the alliance activated its mutual defense clause — known as Article 5 — for the first time in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

“I think there’s a lot that will be decided and it will be pivotal what the administration and Secretary Austin say,” Hutchison told CNBC. “The allies are going to be looking for what the U.S. is intending because of course we provide the enablers for the train-and-advise mission of NATO there,” she added.

Hutchison also added that the alliance may discuss the possibility of expanding the training-and-advising mission in Iraq.

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