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The article “How far the Taliban will go – that is the question. Security in Central Asia depends on the development of the events in Afghanistan” by Stanislav Ivanov was published on the website of the information-analytical journal “InfoSCO”.

The withdrawal of the U.S. and the NATO troops from Afghanistan was accompanied by the strengthening of positions of the Taliban (banned in Russia) in the country. This was to be expected. The plan for the peaceful settlement of the internal conflict in Afghanistan, suggested by Washington, alongside with the agreement, reached between the U.S. government and the Taliban leaders in Doha, the capital of Qatar, was initially flawed and sabotaged by the central authorities in Kabul. The corrupt government of President Ashraf Ghani, which has been losing popularity among the broad masses, still does not want to integrate the Taliban into authorities, and continues to rely on power structures, hoping for the new billion-dollar infusions  from the West into the economy of the country and for the support of the army.

In this situation, the leaders of the Taliban took a number of decisive steps to expand the zone of rural areas and settlements under their control, and reached the borders of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Full text in Russian