DOHA, Qatar — In the twilight months of the United States’ struggle in Afghanistan, Americans fought the Taliban, not over fields or villages or hearts and minds, however over spreadsheets.

Since February 2020, when the United States signed an agreement with the Taliban laying out the phrases of withdrawal from Afghanistan if sure circumstances had been met, the rebel group has recorded its each perceived violation of the deal, totaling effectively over 1,000 incidents specified by Microsoft Excel.

Practically each week, the Taliban delivered these lists of infractions to U.S. diplomats and navy officers in Doha, Qatar, who took the complaints — investigating some and dismissing others as inaccurate.

In a approach, the spreadsheets’ very existence supported President Biden’s rationale for pulling out fully, even when his generals wanted to stay: A conditions-based withdrawal, because the Pentagon needed, appeared sure to fail as a result of neither aspect may agree on whether or not the opposite occasion was even assembly the circumstances they’d signed on to.

After 20 years of killing each other, in suicide assaults, drone strikes, roadside bomb blasts, night time raids and floor offensives, each side understood the struggle on nearly fully completely different phrases.

Mr. Biden’s determination to withdraw all U.S. forces by Sept. 11 — months past the May 1 withdrawal date outlined within the 2020 settlement — has despatched most diplomatic entreaties into disarray. U.S. negotiators have returned to the United States, high Taliban officers at the moment are in Pakistan. High-profile peace talks scheduled for subsequent week in Turkey had been postponed on Tuesday, because the Taliban mentioned they’d not attend. And the Afghans are bracing for what could possibly be a bloody summer time.

But nonetheless, the Taliban are nonetheless including to their Excel paperwork as every day passes.

The 2020 deal, Taliban officers mentioned, requires Afghan safety forces to stop offensive operations with U.S. assist, whereas the Taliban will not be supposed to hold out offensives into provincial capitals. Taliban suicide assaults are additionally forbidden. Artillery and airstrikes, by each the U.S. and Afghan safety forces, are banned outdoors of the place there may be preventing, although most U.S. airstrikes are to defend besieged Afghan troops, which is allowed beneath the deal.

The Taliban declare that they’re upholding the deal, which nonetheless stands post-Biden announcement. The United States usually denies any duty for the violations that the Taliban determine, as they’re often mentioned to have been dedicated by Afghan forces. Meanwhile, the Americans see the insurgents’ repeated assaults on villages and cities, unclaimed focused killings and brazen offensives within the nation’s south as clear infractions.

In at occasions contentious conferences, each side have thrown accusations at each other, one U.S. official mentioned, who spoke on the situation of anonymity.

Still, some American officers consider that the months of disputes — which occurred quietly twice every week, generally on WhatsApp and different occasions in luxurious Qatari motels — can nonetheless be the foundation to further negotiate a reduction in violence that will final 90 days. The plan is a last-ditch try and stave off a lethal summer time rebel offensive and stabilize the battlefield because the final American forces depart — if the Taliban are keen to return again to the desk.

By saying the withdrawal, the Biden administration has given up a lot of the United States’ negotiating leverage, but it surely nonetheless has one final carrot and stick up its sleeve that might get the Taliban onboard: U.S. envoys may conform to push for the discharge of seven,000 Taliban prisoners (although the Afghan authorities is more likely to refuse to conform, particularly within the wake of the announcement) and the removing of United Nations sanctions in opposition to the rebel group.

It appears doable the tip of America’s longest struggle on overseas soil won’t finish in a bang, or a whimper, however as an alternative with representatives from an rebel group and these of a superpower sitting throughout a desk, debating spreadsheets.

To perceive simply how convoluted these discussions have been, The New York Times reviewed a number of of the spreadsheets, evaluating the gathering of incidents from June 2020 with its personal reporting collected via the weekly Afghan war casualty reports, and was capable of confirm seven of the incidents that concerned civilians, out of the greater than 110 violations claimed by the Taliban for the month. (The Times doesn’t report experiences of Taliban casualties, of which a lot of their documented offenses declare to be. In the previous, the Taliban have exaggerated or lied about casualty claims, so The Times is simply printing the incident gadgets it was capable of confirm, although the Taliban’s particulars differ from authorities or native accounts.)

A glance into 4 of those seven incidents present that even when these circumstances are put beneath a microscope, the naked info of what occurred and who’s guilty are nonetheless nearly unimaginable to discern — the byproduct of the struggle’s endless stream of competing narratives.

Unknown gunmen entered a house within the Altamor space of Pul-e-Alam, Logar Province’s capital, and opened hearth on relations, killing a mom and three of her daughters, based on native officers on the time. The father of the household was additionally wounded. The Taliban, nevertheless, attributed the assault on the household to an artillery strike. Though officers on the time promised an investigation, Deedar Lawang, the provincial spokesman, lately mentioned they nonetheless haven’t decided who carried out the killings.

When informed that The Times had reported the incident as being carried out by gunmen and not an artillery strike, a Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid mentioned, “All the recorded incidents are considered a violation by Taliban standards and reporting.”

Violation 244

By all accounts from officers in Kapisa Province’s district of Tagab, a mountainous province simply north of Kabul, the nation’s capital, the deaths of 11 Afghan safety forces and three civilians had been the results of a Taliban offensive into a number of villages on the night time of June 14.

The Taliban’s account is that 9 civilians had been additionally wounded, throughout “artillery fire on a wedding.” But native officers mentioned that three civilians had been killed and eight others had been wounded when a Taliban mortar spherical hit a home.

On June 18, a mortar spherical exploded within the yard of a madrasa, or non secular faculty, in Takhar Province’s Ishkamish District, killing 9 college students and wounding six others, based on native officers. It was unclear if the youngsters had been taking part in with the shell, however final week, Khalil Asir, a police spokesman, mentioned the mortar spherical had been hid in a sack.

The Taliban usually use mosques as central to their fighters operations: not simply as a gathering place, but in addition the place weapons and munitions are generally saved. But their incident report mentioned that “the enemy planted a mine next to the mosque,” implying that Afghan safety forces, backed by the United States, intentionally planted the spherical close to the madrasa.

Violation 307

Several rounds of artillery landed in a livestock market in Sangin District, a unstable space in Helmand Province, killing 23 civilians and wounding 40 others on June 29, based on native officers. Residents of the realm, which was beneath Taliban management, blamed authorities forces, whereas authorities officers blamed the rebel group. Later on, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the United Nations decided that authorities forces had fired the mortar rounds in response to a Taliban assault on their base.

Though the Afghan authorities’s investigation nonetheless has not been made public, final week, Fawad Aman, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, mentioned the federal government’s investigation attributed the assault to the Taliban.

Fahim Abed and Najim Rahim contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan