Taliban happy to see Dutch leave

A spokesman for the Islamist movement has said the Dutch have made a “very good decision” to retreat from Uruzgan.

It is “right and truthful the Dutch have now come to realise they should not sacrifice their lives to American goals”, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a spokesperson for the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, told NRC Handelsblad in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

After the Dutch cabinet collapsed on Saturday, it has become inevitable the Netherlands will withdraw its mission of approximately 1,600 troops from the Afghan province. Nato and the US are disappointed the country does not want to extend its mission beyond the end of the year, but the Taliban are delighted, according to Ahmadi.

The Afghan Taliban have two ‘official’ spokesmen who claim responsibility when attacks are carried out by their comrades and are available for comment to the media regarding the Nato-mission and the Afghan government. Exactly how and to what extent they are connected to the Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s leadership thought to be based in the Pakistani town of Quetta, is unclear.

Ahmadi called on “other countries sacrificing lives to American goals,” in Afghanistan to “follow the way of the Dutch”. The Netherlands is the first of 43 countries participating in the current Nato mission to Afghanistan to retreat from the country. “The Dutch have come to realise: this is not to our benefit, our objectives do not lie with this country, so why sacrifice ourselves?” the spokesman said.

On behalf of the Taliban he said they do not fear the US, which will probably assume the leading role the Dutch now have in Uruzgan, will put up a tougher fight than the Netherlands did. “Each country that comes to Uruzgan awaits the same fortune. Everyone who has taken up arms against the mujahideen in Afghanistan has fought weakly,” Ahmadi said. The Taliban use the term ‘mujahideen’ (struggler or freedom-fighter) to refer to themselves. “They are not up to the task,” Ahmadi said, speaking of the Nato soldiers. “They only study how they should fight here. They are taking notes.”

Speaking in Berlin on Wednesday, Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, said the news of the Dutch retreat brought him “great sadness”. "It is disappointing to see such a decision unfold,” Holbrooke said, adding he hoped this decision might yet be adjusted.