WAR US to leave troops in Afghanistan beyond May, 9/11 new goal
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Taliban seizes eight districts in the past week
BY BILL ROGGIO | June 6, 2021 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio
The Taliban has taken control of eight district centers in four different regions of Afghanistan over the past week as Afghan security forces struggle to maintain control of the security situation.
Eight districts in the north, south, southeast, west and center have fallen under Taliban control, while another district in the south is under effective Taliban control. The disbursed location of the Taliban attacks will force the already strained Afghan military to divide its forces if it wants to retake the districts.
In the north, the Taliban seized control of Du Ab and Mandawal (Mandol) districts in the rugged mountainous province of Nuristan. Afghan officials said in both cases the Afghan military and police units stationed at the district centers retreated from the Taliban advance. Afghan officials had previously admitted in February that Mandawal was under effective Taliban control as government officials were unable to administer the district due to the strong Taliban presence. Nuristan is a heavily contested province. Of its eight districts, two are Taliban controlled, four are contested, and two are government controlled, according to an ongoing study of the security situation in Afghanistan’s districts by FDD’s Long War Journal.
In the south, the district of Gizab in Uruzgan fell to the Taliban as government forces retreated from the district. The district has been highly contested and the Taliban has surrounded the district center for more than one year, and the Taliban briefly seized the district center in November 2020. Uruzgan province is teetering on falling to the Taliban. Of its five districts, three are Taliban controlled and two are contested. Tirin Kot, the provincial capital, is under direct Taliban threat.
Also in the south, the Taliban claimed it took control of the Washir district center. It was previously surrounded by the Taliban. While the Taliban claim has not been independently confirmed in either the Afghan or Western press, a U.S. military official told FDD’s Long War Journal that the Washir district center is indeed under Taliban control. However, Washir district is still assessed as contested as the Shorabak base continues to be under Afghan National Army control.
In the southeast, the Taliban took control of Dih Yak in Ghazni, and Shinkay in Zabul as Afghan security forces retreated from both districts. Dih Yak and Shinkay both have been under Taliban pressure for the past year. Both provinces are Taliban strongholds. The Taliban controls three of Zabul’s 11 districts, seven are contested, and only the provincial capital, Qalat, is under government control. In Ghazni, the Taliban controls 10 districts, the government controls one, and eight more are contested.
In the west, the Taliban seized Qaysar district in Faryab and claimed it took control of the district of Farsi. Qaysar fell after the Taliban besieged the district center, detonated a massive car bomb that killed the police chief and 13 security personnel, and captured 37 others. The Farsi claim has not been supported independently, however two U.S. military officials told FDD’s Long War Journal that Farsi is currently under Taliban control.
In central Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of Shahrak in Ghor province after Afghan forces fled. Before capturing the district center, the Taliban killed 10 security personnel and captured four more after detonating a car bomb at a security outpost.
The Afghan security forces have been under heavy pressure since the Taliban renewed its efforts to retake districts after the U.S. began its withdraw from Afghanistan in May. U.S. airpower is no longer assisting Afghan forces in repelling major Taliban attacks. The Taliban has stepped up pressure in all regions of the country, including in Laghman, Logar, and Wardak, three key provinces that border Kabul. The Taliban took control of Nirkh in Wardak and Dawlat Shah in Laghman in May, and Afghan forces have been unable to retake either district. In Baghlan, the Taliban seized control of Baghlani Jadid and Burka in early May. Baghlani Jadid is now contested after Afghan forces are fighting for the district, but Burka remains under Taliban control.
This article has been updated on June 7, 2021 to add Shahrak and Qaysar to the list of districts that have fallen to the Taliban in the past week.
Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.
Taliban seizes eight districts in the past week | FDD's Long War Journal
The disbursed locations of the Taliban attacks will force the already strained Afghan military to divide its forces if it wants to retake the districts.
www.longwarjournal.org
Taliban seizes eight districts in the past week
BY BILL ROGGIO | June 6, 2021 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio
The Taliban has taken control of eight district centers in four different regions of Afghanistan over the past week as Afghan security forces struggle to maintain control of the security situation.
Eight districts in the north, south, southeast, west and center have fallen under Taliban control, while another district in the south is under effective Taliban control. The disbursed location of the Taliban attacks will force the already strained Afghan military to divide its forces if it wants to retake the districts.
In the north, the Taliban seized control of Du Ab and Mandawal (Mandol) districts in the rugged mountainous province of Nuristan. Afghan officials said in both cases the Afghan military and police units stationed at the district centers retreated from the Taliban advance. Afghan officials had previously admitted in February that Mandawal was under effective Taliban control as government officials were unable to administer the district due to the strong Taliban presence. Nuristan is a heavily contested province. Of its eight districts, two are Taliban controlled, four are contested, and two are government controlled, according to an ongoing study of the security situation in Afghanistan’s districts by FDD’s Long War Journal.
In the south, the district of Gizab in Uruzgan fell to the Taliban as government forces retreated from the district. The district has been highly contested and the Taliban has surrounded the district center for more than one year, and the Taliban briefly seized the district center in November 2020. Uruzgan province is teetering on falling to the Taliban. Of its five districts, three are Taliban controlled and two are contested. Tirin Kot, the provincial capital, is under direct Taliban threat.
Also in the south, the Taliban claimed it took control of the Washir district center. It was previously surrounded by the Taliban. While the Taliban claim has not been independently confirmed in either the Afghan or Western press, a U.S. military official told FDD’s Long War Journal that the Washir district center is indeed under Taliban control. However, Washir district is still assessed as contested as the Shorabak base continues to be under Afghan National Army control.
In the southeast, the Taliban took control of Dih Yak in Ghazni, and Shinkay in Zabul as Afghan security forces retreated from both districts. Dih Yak and Shinkay both have been under Taliban pressure for the past year. Both provinces are Taliban strongholds. The Taliban controls three of Zabul’s 11 districts, seven are contested, and only the provincial capital, Qalat, is under government control. In Ghazni, the Taliban controls 10 districts, the government controls one, and eight more are contested.
In the west, the Taliban seized Qaysar district in Faryab and claimed it took control of the district of Farsi. Qaysar fell after the Taliban besieged the district center, detonated a massive car bomb that killed the police chief and 13 security personnel, and captured 37 others. The Farsi claim has not been supported independently, however two U.S. military officials told FDD’s Long War Journal that Farsi is currently under Taliban control.
In central Afghanistan, the Taliban took control of Shahrak in Ghor province after Afghan forces fled. Before capturing the district center, the Taliban killed 10 security personnel and captured four more after detonating a car bomb at a security outpost.
The Afghan security forces have been under heavy pressure since the Taliban renewed its efforts to retake districts after the U.S. began its withdraw from Afghanistan in May. U.S. airpower is no longer assisting Afghan forces in repelling major Taliban attacks. The Taliban has stepped up pressure in all regions of the country, including in Laghman, Logar, and Wardak, three key provinces that border Kabul. The Taliban took control of Nirkh in Wardak and Dawlat Shah in Laghman in May, and Afghan forces have been unable to retake either district. In Baghlan, the Taliban seized control of Baghlani Jadid and Burka in early May. Baghlani Jadid is now contested after Afghan forces are fighting for the district, but Burka remains under Taliban control.
This article has been updated on June 7, 2021 to add Shahrak and Qaysar to the list of districts that have fallen to the Taliban in the past week.
Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.
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Veteran Member
Turkey Offers to Run Kabul Airport After NATO's Afghan Withdrawal: Officials | World News | US News
Turkey Offers to Run Kabul Airport After NATO's Afghan Withdrawal: Officials
By Reuters June 8, 2021, at 5:29 a.m.
By Orhan Coskun and Tuvan Gumrukcu
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey has offered to guard and run Kabul's airport after the United States and other NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan, but U.S. officials say Ankara is imposing conditions which need to be resolved as their leaders prepare to meet next week.
Turkish officials say Ankara made the proposal at a NATO meeting in May when the United States and its partners agreed a plan to withdraw troops by Sept. 11 after 20 years of war trying to defeat Taliban forces.
Turkish and U.S. officials have discussed possible requirements for the mission, some of which Washington has agreed to address, one Turkish official said.
"Following the United States' decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, Turkey has made an offer to ensure the security of Kabul airport. In this framework, there are talks underway with NATO and the United States," the Turkish official said.
A Turkish role securing the airport for international flights could help improve ties between Ankara and the West, sorely strained by Turkey's purchase of Russian defence systems and disputes with European countries over drilling rights in east Mediterranean waters.
Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on Monday that Ankara's offer was contingent on backup from those allies.
"We intend to stay in Afghanistan depending on conditions. What are our conditions? Political, financial and logistical support. If these are met, we can remain at Hamid Karzai International Airport," his ministry quoted Akar as saying.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they welcomed the Turkish proposal but that Ankara was asking for too many U.S. "enablers" for the mission.
The officials also cited some U.S. concern about Turkey's reliability, given their other disagreements, but said Washington would find a way to make it work.
NATO leaders will discuss Afghanistan at a summit next Monday, where Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will meet Joe Biden for the first time since the U.S. president took office.
With efforts to resolve the dispute over Turkey's purchase of Russian S-400 missile defences, which led Washington to impose sanctions on Turkey's arms industry last year, the airport plan may offer a rare opportunity to build goodwill.
The two countries are also at odds over U.S. support for Syrian Kurdish fighters, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a U.S. court case against a Turkish state bank.
ESCALATING VIOLENCE
The proposal comes as clashes over territory in Afghanistan raged, three months before the planned withdrawal. On Monday, senior government officials said at least 150 Afghan troops were killed or injured in a surge of attacks by Taliban militants in the previous 24 hours.
Securing Kabul airport could help persuade some countries to maintain a diplomatic presence in Afghanistan. Last month Australia shut its embassy there due to security concerns.
Turkey has more than 500 troops stationed in Afghanistan as part of a NATO mission to train Afghan security forces, and the Turkish official said additional troops would be needed for the airport mission.
Talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, which was ousted from power by a U.S. invasion in 2001 and has since waged an insurgency, have been shelved amid the withdrawal. Both sides have accused each other of provocations.
The Afghan government and Taliban were not immediately available for comment. It was not clear whether the Islamist Taliban would accept an expanded Turkish mission.
Turkey Offers to Run Kabul Airport After NATO's Afghan Withdrawal: Officials
By Reuters June 8, 2021, at 5:29 a.m.
By Orhan Coskun and Tuvan Gumrukcu
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey has offered to guard and run Kabul's airport after the United States and other NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan, but U.S. officials say Ankara is imposing conditions which need to be resolved as their leaders prepare to meet next week.
Turkish officials say Ankara made the proposal at a NATO meeting in May when the United States and its partners agreed a plan to withdraw troops by Sept. 11 after 20 years of war trying to defeat Taliban forces.
Turkish and U.S. officials have discussed possible requirements for the mission, some of which Washington has agreed to address, one Turkish official said.
"Following the United States' decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, Turkey has made an offer to ensure the security of Kabul airport. In this framework, there are talks underway with NATO and the United States," the Turkish official said.
A Turkish role securing the airport for international flights could help improve ties between Ankara and the West, sorely strained by Turkey's purchase of Russian defence systems and disputes with European countries over drilling rights in east Mediterranean waters.
Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on Monday that Ankara's offer was contingent on backup from those allies.
"We intend to stay in Afghanistan depending on conditions. What are our conditions? Political, financial and logistical support. If these are met, we can remain at Hamid Karzai International Airport," his ministry quoted Akar as saying.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they welcomed the Turkish proposal but that Ankara was asking for too many U.S. "enablers" for the mission.
The officials also cited some U.S. concern about Turkey's reliability, given their other disagreements, but said Washington would find a way to make it work.
NATO leaders will discuss Afghanistan at a summit next Monday, where Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will meet Joe Biden for the first time since the U.S. president took office.
With efforts to resolve the dispute over Turkey's purchase of Russian S-400 missile defences, which led Washington to impose sanctions on Turkey's arms industry last year, the airport plan may offer a rare opportunity to build goodwill.
The two countries are also at odds over U.S. support for Syrian Kurdish fighters, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a U.S. court case against a Turkish state bank.
ESCALATING VIOLENCE
The proposal comes as clashes over territory in Afghanistan raged, three months before the planned withdrawal. On Monday, senior government officials said at least 150 Afghan troops were killed or injured in a surge of attacks by Taliban militants in the previous 24 hours.
Securing Kabul airport could help persuade some countries to maintain a diplomatic presence in Afghanistan. Last month Australia shut its embassy there due to security concerns.
Turkey has more than 500 troops stationed in Afghanistan as part of a NATO mission to train Afghan security forces, and the Turkish official said additional troops would be needed for the airport mission.
Talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, which was ousted from power by a U.S. invasion in 2001 and has since waged an insurgency, have been shelved amid the withdrawal. Both sides have accused each other of provocations.
The Afghan government and Taliban were not immediately available for comment. It was not clear whether the Islamist Taliban would accept an expanded Turkish mission.
jward
passin' thru
U.S. Weighs Possibility of Airstrikes if Afghan Forces Face Crisis
The Pentagon is considering whether to intervene with warplanes or drones in the event that Kabul is in danger of falling to the Taliban, though no decisions have been made.
A United States Air Force pilot training Afghan service members in 2018. Afghan security forces are at risk of being overwhelmed by the Taliban once American troops withdraw from the country.Credit...Bryan Denton for The New York Times
By Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt and Thomas Gibbons-Neff
Published June 9, 2021Updated June 10, 2021, 12:09 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is considering seeking authorization to carry out airstrikes to support Afghan security forces if Kabul or another major city is in danger of falling to the Taliban, potentially introducing flexibility into President Biden’s plan to end the United States military presence in the conflict, senior officials said.
Mr. Biden and his top national security aides had previously suggested that once U.S. troops left Afghanistan, air support would end as well, with the exception of strikes aimed at terrorist groups that could harm American interests.
But military officials are actively discussing how they might respond if the rapid withdrawal produces consequences with substantial national security implications.
No decisions have been made yet, officials said. But they added that one option under consideration would be to recommend that U.S. warplanes or armed drones intervene in an extraordinary crisis, such as the potential fall of Kabul, the Afghan capital, or a siege that puts American and allied embassies and citizens at risk.
Any additional airstrikes would require the president’s approval. Even then, officials indicated that such air support would be hard to sustain over a lengthy period because of the enormous logistical effort that would be necessary given the American withdrawal. The United States will leave all its air bases in Afghanistan by next month, and any airstrikes would most likely have to be launched from bases in the Persian Gulf.
A potential fall of Kabul is the crisis most likely to lead to military intervention after U.S. troops leave, officials said. Intervening to protect Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city, would be far less certain, one official said. Encroaching Taliban forces have increasingly threatened several other urban hubs in almost every corner of the country in recent months.
The discussion suggests the degree of concern in Washington about the ability of Afghanistan’s military to hold off the Taliban and maintain control of Kabul and other population centers.
And it is the latest indication of the scramble by the United States to address the ramifications of Mr. Biden’s decision in April to order a full withdrawal — a goal that had eluded his two immediate predecessors, in part because of opposition from the military.
Whether to provide air support to Afghan security forces after U.S. troops pull out is one of several major questions about Afghanistan policy that the administration is grappling with as Mr. Biden prepares to meet NATO allies in Europe next week.
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Also unresolved is how U.S. troops will carry out counterterrorism missions to prevent Al Qaeda and other militants from rebuilding their presence in Afghanistan, and how to allow Western contractors to continue to support the Afghan military. At the same time, the C.I.A. is under intense pressure to find new ways to gather intelligence and carry out counterterrorism strikes in the country.
With the Pentagon set to conclude the pullout of U.S. troops by early July, the Afghan military — created, trained and supplied in the image of the American military — is supposed to start defending the country on its own.
Senior American officials say that the immediate crumbling of the Afghan military is not a foregone conclusion. But there is little doubt that the Afghan forces are battered and at risk of being overwhelmed, especially if their commandos and air forces falter.
The United States is not likely to provide additional air support to Afghan forces in rural areas, many of which are already under Taliban control, the officials said. And even government enclaves around the country, which are already under siege, are unlikely to receive much military help from American warplanes, the officials said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid speaking publicly about internal administration discussions.
Image
An Afghan soldier at an outpost in Panjwai, Afghanistan, in March. The United States is not likely to provide air support to Afghan forces in rural areas, officials said.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
When Mr. Biden announced the withdrawal in April, he promised to support the Afghan government, including its security forces; but he appeared to indicate that the Afghans would be on their own militarily after American and NATO troops left this summer. “While we will not stay involved in Afghanistan militarily, our diplomatic and humanitarian work will continue,” he said at the time.
Officials said then that the United States would launch strikes in Afghanistan only for counterterrorism reasons, in case there was intelligence about efforts to attack American interests.
A spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council declined to comment on the options under discussion, saying the administration did not publicly discuss rules of engagement.
But officials say there appears to be some new flexibility in the interpretation of counterterrorism. They say a debate has risen in the administration over what, exactly, is the threshold for turmoil in Afghanistan that could lead to American airstrikes.
The discussion reflects lessons learned from the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq, which forced the Obama administration in 2014 to recommit troops and air cover to defend Iraqi cities as the group encroached on Baghdad.
Senior officials said that at the moment, that threshold looked like a looming fall of Kabul, a situation that would most likely require a signoff from the president before American warplanes — most likely armed MQ-9 Reaper drones but possibly fighter jets — provided air support to Afghan forces.
Afghan officials said they had been told by their American counterparts that the United States would also stop any takeover of major cities, a vague statement without any clear backing.
That support would be tough to maintain over any extended period.
“It’s a very hard thing to do,” said Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the former commander of United States Central Command. “It’s an operation to get aircraft to Afghanistan, especially if you’re having to come from the Gulf or an aircraft carrier. There is limited loiter time for them to do anything.”
There are already signs of the difficulties that the United States would face in sending crewed aircraft to carry out strikes after the withdrawal. As U.S. bases in Afghanistan close, it has left pilots with a conundrum: What if something goes wrong thousands of feet over Afghanistan?
Forward Operating Base Dwyer — a sprawling complex in the south with a sizable landing strip — is closing in weeks, if not days. At that point, U.S. aircraft will have only one viable American military base, Bagram, to divert to if they face a mechanical or other issue in flight. Bagram will shut down when the withdrawal is complete.
With restrictive rules of engagement that require hours of overhead surveillance before an American airstrike is authorized, Afghan forces have tried to compensate, launching 10 to 20 airstrikes a day. U.S. surveillance drones are providing a wealth of coordinates to the Afghan Air Force, but Afghan pilots and aircraft are facing burnout and maintenance issues that grow by the day as foreign contractors withdraw.
“Our policy should be to do everything possible, consistent with not having troops on the ground, to enable the legitimate Afghan government and security forces to hold on,” said Representative Tom Malinowksi, Democrat of New Jersey and a former State Department official.
Mr. Malinowski last month joined more than half a dozen other House Democrats and Republicans in urging Mr. Biden to provide an array of support to the Afghan government after American troops leave, including any information on impending Taliban attacks detected by U.S. surveillance aircraft and spy satellites.
Top American generals have acknowledged that the Afghan security forces could collapse in a year or two, or even a matter of months, after the departure of Western military support.
Image
“We frankly don’t know yet,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said when asked about the ability of Afghan forces to hold up under increasing pressure.Credit...Alex Wong/Getty Images
Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered reporters traveling with him last month a lukewarm statement about the abilities of the Afghan forces. After 20 years of war, thousands of casualties and huge sums of money spent on the Afghan military and police, he characterized them as “reasonably well equipped, reasonably well trained, reasonably well led.”
When pressed on whether he thought the Afghan forces could hold up, General Milley was noncommittal.
“Your question: The Afghan army, do they stay together and remain a cohesive fighting force, or do they fall apart? I think there’s a range of scenarios here, a range of outcomes, a range of possibilities,” he said. “On the one hand, you get some really dramatic, bad possible outcomes. On the other hand, you get a military that stays together and a government that stays together.
“Which one of these options obtains and becomes reality at the end of the day?” he said. “We frankly don’t know yet.”
When asked at a Pentagon news conference last month if Afghan cities were in danger of being overrun by the Taliban after American forces left, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III declined to say whether the United States would provide air support, saying it was a hypothetical situation.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the top U.S. diplomat leading peace efforts with the Taliban, issued last month what seemed to be a definitive statement on the matter.
“We will do what we can during our presence until the forces are withdrawn, to help the Afghan forces, including coming to their defense when they are attacked,” he told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “But once we are out of Afghanistan, direct military support of Afghan forces such as strikes in support of their forces, that’s not being contemplated at this time.”
But three other American officials said the issue had not been resolved in high-level administration meetings on Afghanistan.
www.nytimes.com
The Pentagon is considering whether to intervene with warplanes or drones in the event that Kabul is in danger of falling to the Taliban, though no decisions have been made.
A United States Air Force pilot training Afghan service members in 2018. Afghan security forces are at risk of being overwhelmed by the Taliban once American troops withdraw from the country.Credit...Bryan Denton for The New York Times
By Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt and Thomas Gibbons-Neff
Published June 9, 2021Updated June 10, 2021, 12:09 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is considering seeking authorization to carry out airstrikes to support Afghan security forces if Kabul or another major city is in danger of falling to the Taliban, potentially introducing flexibility into President Biden’s plan to end the United States military presence in the conflict, senior officials said.
Mr. Biden and his top national security aides had previously suggested that once U.S. troops left Afghanistan, air support would end as well, with the exception of strikes aimed at terrorist groups that could harm American interests.
But military officials are actively discussing how they might respond if the rapid withdrawal produces consequences with substantial national security implications.
No decisions have been made yet, officials said. But they added that one option under consideration would be to recommend that U.S. warplanes or armed drones intervene in an extraordinary crisis, such as the potential fall of Kabul, the Afghan capital, or a siege that puts American and allied embassies and citizens at risk.
Any additional airstrikes would require the president’s approval. Even then, officials indicated that such air support would be hard to sustain over a lengthy period because of the enormous logistical effort that would be necessary given the American withdrawal. The United States will leave all its air bases in Afghanistan by next month, and any airstrikes would most likely have to be launched from bases in the Persian Gulf.
A potential fall of Kabul is the crisis most likely to lead to military intervention after U.S. troops leave, officials said. Intervening to protect Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city, would be far less certain, one official said. Encroaching Taliban forces have increasingly threatened several other urban hubs in almost every corner of the country in recent months.
The discussion suggests the degree of concern in Washington about the ability of Afghanistan’s military to hold off the Taliban and maintain control of Kabul and other population centers.
And it is the latest indication of the scramble by the United States to address the ramifications of Mr. Biden’s decision in April to order a full withdrawal — a goal that had eluded his two immediate predecessors, in part because of opposition from the military.
Whether to provide air support to Afghan security forces after U.S. troops pull out is one of several major questions about Afghanistan policy that the administration is grappling with as Mr. Biden prepares to meet NATO allies in Europe next week.
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Also unresolved is how U.S. troops will carry out counterterrorism missions to prevent Al Qaeda and other militants from rebuilding their presence in Afghanistan, and how to allow Western contractors to continue to support the Afghan military. At the same time, the C.I.A. is under intense pressure to find new ways to gather intelligence and carry out counterterrorism strikes in the country.
With the Pentagon set to conclude the pullout of U.S. troops by early July, the Afghan military — created, trained and supplied in the image of the American military — is supposed to start defending the country on its own.
Senior American officials say that the immediate crumbling of the Afghan military is not a foregone conclusion. But there is little doubt that the Afghan forces are battered and at risk of being overwhelmed, especially if their commandos and air forces falter.
The United States is not likely to provide additional air support to Afghan forces in rural areas, many of which are already under Taliban control, the officials said. And even government enclaves around the country, which are already under siege, are unlikely to receive much military help from American warplanes, the officials said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid speaking publicly about internal administration discussions.
Image
An Afghan soldier at an outpost in Panjwai, Afghanistan, in March. The United States is not likely to provide air support to Afghan forces in rural areas, officials said.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
When Mr. Biden announced the withdrawal in April, he promised to support the Afghan government, including its security forces; but he appeared to indicate that the Afghans would be on their own militarily after American and NATO troops left this summer. “While we will not stay involved in Afghanistan militarily, our diplomatic and humanitarian work will continue,” he said at the time.
Officials said then that the United States would launch strikes in Afghanistan only for counterterrorism reasons, in case there was intelligence about efforts to attack American interests.
A spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council declined to comment on the options under discussion, saying the administration did not publicly discuss rules of engagement.
But officials say there appears to be some new flexibility in the interpretation of counterterrorism. They say a debate has risen in the administration over what, exactly, is the threshold for turmoil in Afghanistan that could lead to American airstrikes.
The discussion reflects lessons learned from the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq, which forced the Obama administration in 2014 to recommit troops and air cover to defend Iraqi cities as the group encroached on Baghdad.
Senior officials said that at the moment, that threshold looked like a looming fall of Kabul, a situation that would most likely require a signoff from the president before American warplanes — most likely armed MQ-9 Reaper drones but possibly fighter jets — provided air support to Afghan forces.
Afghan officials said they had been told by their American counterparts that the United States would also stop any takeover of major cities, a vague statement without any clear backing.
That support would be tough to maintain over any extended period.
“It’s a very hard thing to do,” said Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the former commander of United States Central Command. “It’s an operation to get aircraft to Afghanistan, especially if you’re having to come from the Gulf or an aircraft carrier. There is limited loiter time for them to do anything.”
There are already signs of the difficulties that the United States would face in sending crewed aircraft to carry out strikes after the withdrawal. As U.S. bases in Afghanistan close, it has left pilots with a conundrum: What if something goes wrong thousands of feet over Afghanistan?
Forward Operating Base Dwyer — a sprawling complex in the south with a sizable landing strip — is closing in weeks, if not days. At that point, U.S. aircraft will have only one viable American military base, Bagram, to divert to if they face a mechanical or other issue in flight. Bagram will shut down when the withdrawal is complete.
With restrictive rules of engagement that require hours of overhead surveillance before an American airstrike is authorized, Afghan forces have tried to compensate, launching 10 to 20 airstrikes a day. U.S. surveillance drones are providing a wealth of coordinates to the Afghan Air Force, but Afghan pilots and aircraft are facing burnout and maintenance issues that grow by the day as foreign contractors withdraw.
“Our policy should be to do everything possible, consistent with not having troops on the ground, to enable the legitimate Afghan government and security forces to hold on,” said Representative Tom Malinowksi, Democrat of New Jersey and a former State Department official.
Mr. Malinowski last month joined more than half a dozen other House Democrats and Republicans in urging Mr. Biden to provide an array of support to the Afghan government after American troops leave, including any information on impending Taliban attacks detected by U.S. surveillance aircraft and spy satellites.
Top American generals have acknowledged that the Afghan security forces could collapse in a year or two, or even a matter of months, after the departure of Western military support.
Image
“We frankly don’t know yet,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said when asked about the ability of Afghan forces to hold up under increasing pressure.Credit...Alex Wong/Getty Images
Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered reporters traveling with him last month a lukewarm statement about the abilities of the Afghan forces. After 20 years of war, thousands of casualties and huge sums of money spent on the Afghan military and police, he characterized them as “reasonably well equipped, reasonably well trained, reasonably well led.”
When pressed on whether he thought the Afghan forces could hold up, General Milley was noncommittal.
“Your question: The Afghan army, do they stay together and remain a cohesive fighting force, or do they fall apart? I think there’s a range of scenarios here, a range of outcomes, a range of possibilities,” he said. “On the one hand, you get some really dramatic, bad possible outcomes. On the other hand, you get a military that stays together and a government that stays together.
“Which one of these options obtains and becomes reality at the end of the day?” he said. “We frankly don’t know yet.”
When asked at a Pentagon news conference last month if Afghan cities were in danger of being overrun by the Taliban after American forces left, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III declined to say whether the United States would provide air support, saying it was a hypothetical situation.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the top U.S. diplomat leading peace efforts with the Taliban, issued last month what seemed to be a definitive statement on the matter.
“We will do what we can during our presence until the forces are withdrawn, to help the Afghan forces, including coming to their defense when they are attacked,” he told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “But once we are out of Afghanistan, direct military support of Afghan forces such as strikes in support of their forces, that’s not being contemplated at this time.”
But three other American officials said the issue had not been resolved in high-level administration meetings on Afghanistan.
U.S. Weighs Possibility of Airstrikes if Afghan Forces Face Crisis (Published 2021)
The Pentagon is considering whether to intervene with warplanes or drones in the event that Kabul is in danger of falling to the Taliban, though no decisions have been made.
Old Gray Mare
TB Fanatic
Dear Lord I humbly pray our troop come home safe, sound and soon.
jward
passin' thru
Latest News
Taliban captures Takhar’s district, security force under siege
Published
3 mins ago
on
June 11, 2021
By
Ariana News
(Last Updated On: June 11, 2021)
The Taliban militants have captured the Ashkamash district of Northern Takhar province, sources said Friday.
Mohammad Azam Afzali, a member of the Provincial Council, said that the Afghan security forces are under siege by the Taliban in the central Bazar of the district.
“Due to the lack of reinforcements, the troops retreated from the district police headquarters last night and the Taliban took full control of the district,” Afzali said.
According to Afzali, more than 10 security forces have been killed in the skirmish in the last two days in the district.
Security sources, who did not want to be named, confirmed that the Taliban had completely captured the district, adding that the Bangi district of the province is also at risk of collapse.
He added that a checkpoint in the Seya Ab village of the Bangi had also fallen to the militants.
Local officials, however, have not commented yet.
The Taliban also claimed that it’s fighters have captured the district.
https://ariananews.af/taliban-captu...urity-force-under-siege/#.YMMup9CsNDs.twitter
Taliban captures Takhar’s district, security force under siege
Published
3 mins ago
on
June 11, 2021
By
Ariana News
(Last Updated On: June 11, 2021)
The Taliban militants have captured the Ashkamash district of Northern Takhar province, sources said Friday.
Mohammad Azam Afzali, a member of the Provincial Council, said that the Afghan security forces are under siege by the Taliban in the central Bazar of the district.
“Due to the lack of reinforcements, the troops retreated from the district police headquarters last night and the Taliban took full control of the district,” Afzali said.
According to Afzali, more than 10 security forces have been killed in the skirmish in the last two days in the district.
Security sources, who did not want to be named, confirmed that the Taliban had completely captured the district, adding that the Bangi district of the province is also at risk of collapse.
He added that a checkpoint in the Seya Ab village of the Bangi had also fallen to the militants.
Local officials, however, have not commented yet.
The Taliban also claimed that it’s fighters have captured the district.
https://ariananews.af/taliban-captu...urity-force-under-siege/#.YMMup9CsNDs.twitter
Posted for fair use.....
www.channelnewsasia.com
Commentary: US withdrawal from Afghanistan is hollow victory for Pakistan
The groups Pakistan has nurtured in supporting the Taliban could strike at its own breast, says Shashi Tharoor.
12 Jun 2021 06:01AM (Updated: 12 Jun 2021 06:10AM)
NEW DELHI: The late head of Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, was fond of boasting that when Afghanistan’s history came to be written, it would record that the ISI, with the help of America, defeated the Soviet Union.
And next, he would slyly add, historians would state that the ISI, with the help of America, defeated America.
Gul’s boast was not the sort of empty rodomontade that military men are notorious for once they hang up their uniforms and recall their past as being more glorious than the details might warrant.
He was right to argue that it was the ISI’s tactic of sponsoring militants and terrorists – amply armed, supplied, and financed by the United States – against the Red Army in Afghanistan that forced the Kremlin to withdraw ignominiously.
READ: Commentary: US decision to withdraw from Afghanistan is the right one
READ: Afghan-Taliban peace talks: Who, what, where and why
Subsequently, using the same approach and initially many of the same personnel and methods, Pakistan created and sponsored a mujahideen group calling themselves the Taliban, or “students” of Islam, who swiftly took over Afghanistan and ruled it as a wholly owned ISI subsidiary.
Things were rosy for Gul and his ilk until Osama bin Laden, a former mujahideen fighter who enjoyed the hospitality of the Taliban’s new “Islamic Emirate”, ordered the Sep 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the US from his Afghan hideout.
America’s furious response resulted in the overthrow of the Taliban and the exile of bin Laden, under ISI protection, to refuge in a Pakistani military redoubt.
The ISI had even less to crow about when US tracked down bin Laden to a secure compound in Abbottabad and special forces killed him there in 2011.
US WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN IS A DEFEAT
But as America wearied of being bogged down interminably in Afghanistan, and the ISI helped its Taliban clients to rearm, reorganise, and resume their operations against the US-backed regime in Kabul, the tide turned in the ISI’s favour.
President Joe Biden has announced that US forces will withdraw completely from Afghanistan by Sep 11, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The date that long symbolised America’s determination to strike at the root of the terrorist attacks against it now signifies its lack of will to continue.
Whatever face-saving successor arrangements the US may put in place to mask its capitulation, its withdrawal from Afghanistan, with none of its long-term objectives achieved, is a defeat.
With the Taliban more powerful than ever and poised to reclaim power in Kabul, the only external victor will be the ISI. As Gul foresaw, it will have defeated America with America’s help.
READ: Commentary: Afghanistan is not ready for foreign troops to leave
Pakistan has now received two decades’ worth of US military assistance, totalling an estimated US$11 billion.
The ISI has long been obsessed with the idea that controlling Afghanistan would give Pakistan the “strategic depth” needed to challenge its main adversary, India. A Taliban regime (or even a Taliban-dominated coalition government) in Kabul is the best guarantee of that.
The Taliban factions are so beholden to their Pakistani benefactors that, as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani acidly remarked, their decision-making bodies – Quetta Shura, Miramshah Shura, and Peshawar Shura – are named after the Pakistani towns where they are based.
READ: Commentary: What comes after a US withdrawal from Afghanistan?
NOT ALL GOOD NEWS FOR PAKISTAN
But Gul’s successors would be wise to tone down their celebrations. First, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan removes a vital source of leverage for Pakistan in Washington. It may not be good news for Pakistan if the Americans need it less.
Furthermore, as the ISI knows, the problem with creating and sponsoring militant groups is that they do not always remain under your control.
The lesson of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – that the creatures we give life to can develop minds and needs of their own – has been apparent elsewhere as well, not least in Israel’s role in building up Hamas as a rival to the Palestine Liberation Organization.
READ: Commentary: How Israel’s Iron Dome became a double-edged sword
The same thing has happened in Pakistan, where the period of sullen cooperation between the Pakistani authorities and the US during the post-9/11 American crackdown in Afghanistan spawned the rebellion of the “Pakistani Taliban”.
While the Afghan Taliban needed Pakistani refuge, ISI safe houses, funding and arms to mount the insurgency that has brought the US to the point of withdrawal, the Pakistani Taliban have attacked their own erstwhile godfathers for insufficient fealty to militant Islam.
The ISI no doubt hopes that once US forces are gone and the Afghan Taliban is securely entrenched in Kabul, it can persuade the Pakistani Taliban to forgive and forget the agency’s previous transgressions.
If that happens, the thinking goes, peace will be restored, the ISI will control Afghanistan, and the Pakistani mujahideen will stop targeting Pakistani army installations and convoys, and join the ISI in intensifying attacks on the “real enemy”, India.
READ: Commentary: India's China problem in Pakistan
But a nightmarish alternative scenario for the ISI is also possible. Pakistani militant groups, emboldened by the success of their brethren in Afghanistan, might no longer be prey to the military’s blandishments.
Instead, they could launch terror attacks with the aim of emulating in Pakistan what the Taliban have achieved in Afghanistan.
If Afghanistan can be run as an Islamic emirate, they may ask, why can’t we do the same in Pakistan? Why dance to the ISI’s tune when we can call our own?
In such a scenario, the ISI’s heady moment of triumph on 9/11 this year could seem increasingly hollow, as the vipers it has nurtured strike at its own breast.
READ: Commentary: Blurred lines and new means - terrorism’s alarming new dimensions
True, the Pakistani Taliban – without a state sponsor of their own – has less chance of success than their Afghan counterparts. But they can still do considerable damage, in the process intensifying the Pakistani public’s disenchantment with the military’s domination of their country.
Should that happen, we will need to extend Gul’s account and say that the ISI, as the agent of the Pakistani military, helped to “defeat” or at least discredit itself.
Shashi Tharoor, a former UN under-secretary-general and former Indian Minister of State for External Affairs and Minister of State for Human Resource Development, is an MP for the Indian National Congress.
Commentary: US withdrawal from Afghanistan is hollow victory for Pakistan
The groups Pakistan has nurtured in supporting the Taliban could strike at its own breast, says Shashi Tharoor.
Commentary: US withdrawal from Afghanistan is hollow victory for Pakistan
The groups Pakistan has nurtured in supporting the Taliban could strike at its own breast, says Shashi Tharoor.
12 Jun 2021 06:01AM (Updated: 12 Jun 2021 06:10AM)
NEW DELHI: The late head of Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, was fond of boasting that when Afghanistan’s history came to be written, it would record that the ISI, with the help of America, defeated the Soviet Union.
And next, he would slyly add, historians would state that the ISI, with the help of America, defeated America.
Gul’s boast was not the sort of empty rodomontade that military men are notorious for once they hang up their uniforms and recall their past as being more glorious than the details might warrant.
He was right to argue that it was the ISI’s tactic of sponsoring militants and terrorists – amply armed, supplied, and financed by the United States – against the Red Army in Afghanistan that forced the Kremlin to withdraw ignominiously.
READ: Commentary: US decision to withdraw from Afghanistan is the right one
READ: Afghan-Taliban peace talks: Who, what, where and why
Subsequently, using the same approach and initially many of the same personnel and methods, Pakistan created and sponsored a mujahideen group calling themselves the Taliban, or “students” of Islam, who swiftly took over Afghanistan and ruled it as a wholly owned ISI subsidiary.
Things were rosy for Gul and his ilk until Osama bin Laden, a former mujahideen fighter who enjoyed the hospitality of the Taliban’s new “Islamic Emirate”, ordered the Sep 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the US from his Afghan hideout.
America’s furious response resulted in the overthrow of the Taliban and the exile of bin Laden, under ISI protection, to refuge in a Pakistani military redoubt.
The ISI had even less to crow about when US tracked down bin Laden to a secure compound in Abbottabad and special forces killed him there in 2011.
US WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN IS A DEFEAT
But as America wearied of being bogged down interminably in Afghanistan, and the ISI helped its Taliban clients to rearm, reorganise, and resume their operations against the US-backed regime in Kabul, the tide turned in the ISI’s favour.
President Joe Biden has announced that US forces will withdraw completely from Afghanistan by Sep 11, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The date that long symbolised America’s determination to strike at the root of the terrorist attacks against it now signifies its lack of will to continue.
Whatever face-saving successor arrangements the US may put in place to mask its capitulation, its withdrawal from Afghanistan, with none of its long-term objectives achieved, is a defeat.
With the Taliban more powerful than ever and poised to reclaim power in Kabul, the only external victor will be the ISI. As Gul foresaw, it will have defeated America with America’s help.
READ: Commentary: Afghanistan is not ready for foreign troops to leave
Pakistan has now received two decades’ worth of US military assistance, totalling an estimated US$11 billion.
The ISI has long been obsessed with the idea that controlling Afghanistan would give Pakistan the “strategic depth” needed to challenge its main adversary, India. A Taliban regime (or even a Taliban-dominated coalition government) in Kabul is the best guarantee of that.
The Taliban factions are so beholden to their Pakistani benefactors that, as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani acidly remarked, their decision-making bodies – Quetta Shura, Miramshah Shura, and Peshawar Shura – are named after the Pakistani towns where they are based.
READ: Commentary: What comes after a US withdrawal from Afghanistan?
NOT ALL GOOD NEWS FOR PAKISTAN
But Gul’s successors would be wise to tone down their celebrations. First, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan removes a vital source of leverage for Pakistan in Washington. It may not be good news for Pakistan if the Americans need it less.
Furthermore, as the ISI knows, the problem with creating and sponsoring militant groups is that they do not always remain under your control.
The lesson of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – that the creatures we give life to can develop minds and needs of their own – has been apparent elsewhere as well, not least in Israel’s role in building up Hamas as a rival to the Palestine Liberation Organization.
READ: Commentary: How Israel’s Iron Dome became a double-edged sword
The same thing has happened in Pakistan, where the period of sullen cooperation between the Pakistani authorities and the US during the post-9/11 American crackdown in Afghanistan spawned the rebellion of the “Pakistani Taliban”.
While the Afghan Taliban needed Pakistani refuge, ISI safe houses, funding and arms to mount the insurgency that has brought the US to the point of withdrawal, the Pakistani Taliban have attacked their own erstwhile godfathers for insufficient fealty to militant Islam.
The ISI no doubt hopes that once US forces are gone and the Afghan Taliban is securely entrenched in Kabul, it can persuade the Pakistani Taliban to forgive and forget the agency’s previous transgressions.
If that happens, the thinking goes, peace will be restored, the ISI will control Afghanistan, and the Pakistani mujahideen will stop targeting Pakistani army installations and convoys, and join the ISI in intensifying attacks on the “real enemy”, India.
READ: Commentary: India's China problem in Pakistan
But a nightmarish alternative scenario for the ISI is also possible. Pakistani militant groups, emboldened by the success of their brethren in Afghanistan, might no longer be prey to the military’s blandishments.
Instead, they could launch terror attacks with the aim of emulating in Pakistan what the Taliban have achieved in Afghanistan.
If Afghanistan can be run as an Islamic emirate, they may ask, why can’t we do the same in Pakistan? Why dance to the ISI’s tune when we can call our own?
In such a scenario, the ISI’s heady moment of triumph on 9/11 this year could seem increasingly hollow, as the vipers it has nurtured strike at its own breast.
READ: Commentary: Blurred lines and new means - terrorism’s alarming new dimensions
True, the Pakistani Taliban – without a state sponsor of their own – has less chance of success than their Afghan counterparts. But they can still do considerable damage, in the process intensifying the Pakistani public’s disenchantment with the military’s domination of their country.
Should that happen, we will need to extend Gul’s account and say that the ISI, as the agent of the Pakistani military, helped to “defeat” or at least discredit itself.
Shashi Tharoor, a former UN under-secretary-general and former Indian Minister of State for External Affairs and Minister of State for Human Resource Development, is an MP for the Indian National Congress.
Hummm.......
Posted for fair use.....
www.arabnews.com
Islamic organizations hail ‘Declaration of peace in Afghanistan’
RASHID HASSAN
June 12, 2021 00:39
RIYADH: Diplomats and leading officials from Islamic organizations on Friday praised the historic “Declaration of peace in Afghanistan” conference for paving the way for a solution to the long-running crisis in the country.
The conference, hosted in Makkah on Thursday by the Muslim World League (MWL) under the auspices of Saudi Arabia, brought together for the first time senior Afghan and Pakistani scholars, along with government ministers from the two countries, in an effort to help bring about reconciliation among the people of Afghanistan.
The participants offered their support for negotiations between the warring factions in the country and rejected all acts of extremism.
“This historic announcement reflects the great efforts made by the Kingdom (of Saudi Arabia), as the current president of the Islamic Summit, and its pivotal role in reconciliation among the parties in the Islamic countries,” said Dr. Yousef Al-Othaimeen, secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
He added that he values the work of the MWL that led to Thursday’s declaration and an agreement to find a lasting and comprehensive solution that will support the process of peace, reconciliation, stability, progress and prosperity in Afghanistan.
The Islamic Broadcasting Union expressed its appreciation for the pivotal role Saudi Arabia has played in helping to spread peace and stability in the Islamic world. It also praised the efforts of the MWL to find solutions.
Sayed Jalal Karim, the former Afghan ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told Arab News: “The peace conference was very fruitful for peace and stability in Afghanistan. It came at a very good time that will help to further strengthen relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“There is a role for Ulemas (Muslim scholars) for peace in Afghanistan. And the senior scholars have gathered to sign the historic declaration of peace in order to resolve the crisis.”
HIGHLIGHTS
• Dr. Yousef Al-Othaimeen, secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), said that he values the work of the MWL that led to Thursday’s declaration and an agreement to find a lasting and comprehensive solution that will support the process of peace, reconciliation, stability, progress and prosperity in Afghanistan.
• The Council of Senior Scholars, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body, also welcomed the outcome of the conference. It called on all warring parties to be reasonable, abide by the declaration, cease hostilities and engage in peace talks.
He noted that the speeches given during the conference by government ministers from Afghanistan and Pakistan were very measured and balanced, which he said reflected their sincerity and support for finding a solution to the crisis in Afghanistan through negotiation.
The final statement from the conference “did not make any accusation against any party,” he added, “it only stressed peace, solidarity and bringing Afghans together.”
Earlier, Ahmed Javed Mujadadi, Afghanistan’s current ambassador to Saudi Arabia, emphasized the symbolic importance of holding the conference in Makkah, in the presence of senior scholars, saying that the Kingdom has never failed Afghanistan and is working to establish security and peace in the country. He added that the event reflected a message of brotherhood, love and peace.
Shafiq Samim, the permanent representative of Afghanistan to the OIC, said that the country has been suffering from the effects of war for four decades.
The Council of Senior Scholars, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body, also welcomed the outcome of the conference. It called on all warring parties to be reasonable, abide by the declaration, cease hostilities and engage in peace talks.
Posted for fair use.....
Islamic organizations hail ‘Declaration of peace in Afghanistan’
RIYADH: Diplomats and leading officials from Islamic organizations on Friday praised the historic “Declaration of peace in Afghanistan” conference for paving the way for a solution to the long-running crisis in the country. The conference, hosted in Makkah on Thursday by the Muslim World League...
www.arabnews.com
Islamic organizations hail ‘Declaration of peace in Afghanistan’
- Officials and groups praise the Muslim World League for organizing the historic conference, and Saudi Arabia for hosting it in Makkah
RASHID HASSAN
June 12, 2021 00:39
RIYADH: Diplomats and leading officials from Islamic organizations on Friday praised the historic “Declaration of peace in Afghanistan” conference for paving the way for a solution to the long-running crisis in the country.
The conference, hosted in Makkah on Thursday by the Muslim World League (MWL) under the auspices of Saudi Arabia, brought together for the first time senior Afghan and Pakistani scholars, along with government ministers from the two countries, in an effort to help bring about reconciliation among the people of Afghanistan.
The participants offered their support for negotiations between the warring factions in the country and rejected all acts of extremism.
“This historic announcement reflects the great efforts made by the Kingdom (of Saudi Arabia), as the current president of the Islamic Summit, and its pivotal role in reconciliation among the parties in the Islamic countries,” said Dr. Yousef Al-Othaimeen, secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
He added that he values the work of the MWL that led to Thursday’s declaration and an agreement to find a lasting and comprehensive solution that will support the process of peace, reconciliation, stability, progress and prosperity in Afghanistan.
The Islamic Broadcasting Union expressed its appreciation for the pivotal role Saudi Arabia has played in helping to spread peace and stability in the Islamic world. It also praised the efforts of the MWL to find solutions.
Sayed Jalal Karim, the former Afghan ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told Arab News: “The peace conference was very fruitful for peace and stability in Afghanistan. It came at a very good time that will help to further strengthen relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“There is a role for Ulemas (Muslim scholars) for peace in Afghanistan. And the senior scholars have gathered to sign the historic declaration of peace in order to resolve the crisis.”
HIGHLIGHTS
• Dr. Yousef Al-Othaimeen, secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), said that he values the work of the MWL that led to Thursday’s declaration and an agreement to find a lasting and comprehensive solution that will support the process of peace, reconciliation, stability, progress and prosperity in Afghanistan.
• The Council of Senior Scholars, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body, also welcomed the outcome of the conference. It called on all warring parties to be reasonable, abide by the declaration, cease hostilities and engage in peace talks.
He noted that the speeches given during the conference by government ministers from Afghanistan and Pakistan were very measured and balanced, which he said reflected their sincerity and support for finding a solution to the crisis in Afghanistan through negotiation.
The final statement from the conference “did not make any accusation against any party,” he added, “it only stressed peace, solidarity and bringing Afghans together.”
Earlier, Ahmed Javed Mujadadi, Afghanistan’s current ambassador to Saudi Arabia, emphasized the symbolic importance of holding the conference in Makkah, in the presence of senior scholars, saying that the Kingdom has never failed Afghanistan and is working to establish security and peace in the country. He added that the event reflected a message of brotherhood, love and peace.
Shafiq Samim, the permanent representative of Afghanistan to the OIC, said that the country has been suffering from the effects of war for four decades.
The Council of Senior Scholars, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body, also welcomed the outcome of the conference. It called on all warring parties to be reasonable, abide by the declaration, cease hostilities and engage in peace talks.
Posted for fair use.....
www.pri.org
Commentary: How The HALO Trust helped keep me alive in Afghanistan
In the aftermath of the attack on Tuesday on The HALO Trust in Afghanistan, Chris Woolf, a former journalist for the BBC and The World, recounts how the group saved his life.
The World
June 11, 2021 · 12:00 PM EDT
Commentary Chris Woolf
The news of Tuesday’s attack on The HALO Trust in Afghanistan hit me hard. The Trust is an international nonprofit organization that clears landmines and unexploded bombs and shells in multiple countries. They have saved thousands of lives. I count my own among them.
Ten HALO staff were killed in the attack Tuesday on a camp in Baghlan province, in the northeast of Afghanistan. Sixteen more were wounded. Gunmen entered the camp and went bed to bed, and began shooting men as they slept. The victims, like almost every HALO employee in Afghanistan, were Afghans. It seems so senseless to me. These are men who risk their lives every day to save others.
Related: Women in Afghanistan push for rights and more representation amid ongoing talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban
“This is the most serious incident The HALO Trust has endured in its existence,” said HALO’s CEO, James Cowan, adding that the charity group would not be deterred from continuing its work.
It’s not known who carried out the attack — Afghan officials are blaming the Taliban. But Cowan told the BBC that, on the contrary, local Taliban had helped in the aftermath.
Cowan said The HALO Trust would not be frightened.
Related: Afghan amb to the US on the Taliban: ‘They are not interested in peace but power’
“We’re going to stay … We’re there for the people of Afghanistan, and we still have a job to be done.”
By coincidence, I had been chatting with HALO for the previous week, tying up some loose ends for my book.
“HALO was founded in London in 1988, and first went to Kabul that year,” he added. “Our senior Afghans (who run the 2,500 staff) have been with us since the 1990s.”
HALO stands for Hazardous Area Life-support Organization. It was founded by a former British army officer called Colin Mitchell. He was a veteran of many counterinsurgency campaigns in the twilight years of the British Empire, earning a nickname in the press of Mad Mitch for his outspoken manner and aggressive tactics.
Related: Afghans who fled to Turkey are worried — and hopeful — about the prospect of peace at home
But in 1988, he began a new life trying to help ordinary people affected by war. With his military background, he decided on demining, and recruited a group of former officers in the British armed forces and nurses. They went out to recruit, train and lead teams of deminers. They blustered their way into some of the most appalling war zones of that era, at the end of the Cold War: first Afghanistan, then Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique and elsewhere.
I met some of these guys on my visit to Afghanistan in 1991. The HALO Trust helped keep me alive.
It was my first day outside of the capital. My first day in a combat zone. It was extremely challenging. My BBC colleague and I were traveling in a humanitarian aid convoy with a couple of mine experts. One was from HALO. As soon as we hit the city limits, we came across an armored personnel carrier that had just been hit by a huge anti-tank mine.
The scene was awful enough, but then there’s the realization that the road you’re on is mined. That’s pretty unsettling. The mines are buried, sometimes five together, very deep in potholes. The mine guys had the experience, skill and confidence to somehow drive us safely through that mined road.
Related: Afghan interpreters languish in visa limbo as US coalitions return home
More directly, an hour or two later, we made a pit stop by an open field. I can still see it. I started walking toward a copse of trees to relieve myself when one of the HALO guys grabbed my arm and pulled me back onto the pavement, yelling, “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
I quickly learned that you never go off the pavement or tarmacked road, if you can avoid it. That’s a privilege denied to the farmers and their families who have no choice but to go into the fields. That rude, rapid education was critical to staying safe during my time there.
The third instance was that same night when we sheltered at their office in Pul-i-Khumri during an assault on that city. Pul-i-Khumri is very close to the scene of this week’s attack. It was the first major HALO base outside of Kabul, and remains a central hub for their operations.
Landmines in Afghanistan largely remain as a dreadful legacy of the Soviet occupation way back in the 1980s. Both sides laid mines everywhere. The rebel mujahidin got some from Pakistan, with CIA backing. But most of the mines — by far — were laid by the Soviets and their communist allies.
They left millions of landmines in the ground when the regime collapsed in 1992. Some with batteries died. Some with wooden casings rotted away. But most are activated mechanically by pressure, so in a dry climate like Afghanistan, they last for decades. More were laid in the civil war years in the 1990s. They’re still there.
Every year, 2,000-3,000 Afghans are killed or wounded by mines. Clearing them requires science and courage. It’s a Sisyphean task.
Chris Woolf is a former journalist for the BBC and The World. His book, “Bumbling Through the Hindu Kush: A Memoir of Fear and Kindness in Afghanistan,” is being published in September. For more information, check out his Facebook page or for more photos, go to his Instagram page.
Commentary: How The HALO Trust helped keep me alive in Afghanistan - The World from PRX
In the aftermath of the attack on Tuesday on The HALO Trust in Afghanistan, Chris Woolf, a former journalist for the BBC and The World, recounts how the group saved his life.
www.pri.org
Commentary: How The HALO Trust helped keep me alive in Afghanistan
In the aftermath of the attack on Tuesday on The HALO Trust in Afghanistan, Chris Woolf, a former journalist for the BBC and The World, recounts how the group saved his life.
The World
June 11, 2021 · 12:00 PM EDT
Commentary Chris Woolf
The news of Tuesday’s attack on The HALO Trust in Afghanistan hit me hard. The Trust is an international nonprofit organization that clears landmines and unexploded bombs and shells in multiple countries. They have saved thousands of lives. I count my own among them.
Ten HALO staff were killed in the attack Tuesday on a camp in Baghlan province, in the northeast of Afghanistan. Sixteen more were wounded. Gunmen entered the camp and went bed to bed, and began shooting men as they slept. The victims, like almost every HALO employee in Afghanistan, were Afghans. It seems so senseless to me. These are men who risk their lives every day to save others.
Related: Women in Afghanistan push for rights and more representation amid ongoing talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban
“This is the most serious incident The HALO Trust has endured in its existence,” said HALO’s CEO, James Cowan, adding that the charity group would not be deterred from continuing its work.
“Each one of those young men was a member of a family; was a father, a brother or a son,” he said. “And the hole they have left in The HALO Trust is huge.”
It’s not known who carried out the attack — Afghan officials are blaming the Taliban. But Cowan told the BBC that, on the contrary, local Taliban had helped in the aftermath.
Cowan said The HALO Trust would not be frightened.
Related: Afghan amb to the US on the Taliban: ‘They are not interested in peace but power’
“We’re going to stay … We’re there for the people of Afghanistan, and we still have a job to be done.”
By coincidence, I had been chatting with HALO for the previous week, tying up some loose ends for my book.
“As a country, it has a special place at the heart of HALO’s identity,” HALO’s director of programs, Tim Porter, reminded me this week.
“HALO was founded in London in 1988, and first went to Kabul that year,” he added. “Our senior Afghans (who run the 2,500 staff) have been with us since the 1990s.”
HALO stands for Hazardous Area Life-support Organization. It was founded by a former British army officer called Colin Mitchell. He was a veteran of many counterinsurgency campaigns in the twilight years of the British Empire, earning a nickname in the press of Mad Mitch for his outspoken manner and aggressive tactics.
Related: Afghans who fled to Turkey are worried — and hopeful — about the prospect of peace at home
But in 1988, he began a new life trying to help ordinary people affected by war. With his military background, he decided on demining, and recruited a group of former officers in the British armed forces and nurses. They went out to recruit, train and lead teams of deminers. They blustered their way into some of the most appalling war zones of that era, at the end of the Cold War: first Afghanistan, then Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique and elsewhere.
I met some of these guys on my visit to Afghanistan in 1991. The HALO Trust helped keep me alive.
It was my first day outside of the capital. My first day in a combat zone. It was extremely challenging. My BBC colleague and I were traveling in a humanitarian aid convoy with a couple of mine experts. One was from HALO. As soon as we hit the city limits, we came across an armored personnel carrier that had just been hit by a huge anti-tank mine.
The scene was awful enough, but then there’s the realization that the road you’re on is mined. That’s pretty unsettling. The mines are buried, sometimes five together, very deep in potholes. The mine guys had the experience, skill and confidence to somehow drive us safely through that mined road.
Related: Afghan interpreters languish in visa limbo as US coalitions return home
More directly, an hour or two later, we made a pit stop by an open field. I can still see it. I started walking toward a copse of trees to relieve myself when one of the HALO guys grabbed my arm and pulled me back onto the pavement, yelling, “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
I quickly learned that you never go off the pavement or tarmacked road, if you can avoid it. That’s a privilege denied to the farmers and their families who have no choice but to go into the fields. That rude, rapid education was critical to staying safe during my time there.
The third instance was that same night when we sheltered at their office in Pul-i-Khumri during an assault on that city. Pul-i-Khumri is very close to the scene of this week’s attack. It was the first major HALO base outside of Kabul, and remains a central hub for their operations.
Landmines in Afghanistan largely remain as a dreadful legacy of the Soviet occupation way back in the 1980s. Both sides laid mines everywhere. The rebel mujahidin got some from Pakistan, with CIA backing. But most of the mines — by far — were laid by the Soviets and their communist allies.
They left millions of landmines in the ground when the regime collapsed in 1992. Some with batteries died. Some with wooden casings rotted away. But most are activated mechanically by pressure, so in a dry climate like Afghanistan, they last for decades. More were laid in the civil war years in the 1990s. They’re still there.
Every year, 2,000-3,000 Afghans are killed or wounded by mines. Clearing them requires science and courage. It’s a Sisyphean task.
Chris Woolf is a former journalist for the BBC and The World. His book, “Bumbling Through the Hindu Kush: A Memoir of Fear and Kindness in Afghanistan,” is being published in September. For more information, check out his Facebook page or for more photos, go to his Instagram page.
Hummm........
Posted for fair use.....
dailytimes.com.pk
OP-ED
Afghanistan and the Second Great Game
Abdul Hadi Mayar
JUNE 13, 2021
When US President Joe Biden announced in April of this year that he would be pulling out all remaining US troops from Afghanistan by the very beginning of July — the White House administration described it as a shift in “the US global focus from counterinsurgency campaign to current priorities.”
That spoke volumes about the future American plans for the region and the mindset behind the February 2020 agreement that the previous administration inked with Taliban, regarding a complete exit from Afghanistan. Not to mention Washington’s insistence on securing guarantees that the Taliban would not allow terrorist groups to operate on Afghan soil.
Of course, all this had been on the cards since May 2014 when then president Barack Obama announced that all combat operations would stop by the end of that year and troops would fully withdraw by the end of 2016. However, his successor Donald Trump temporarily halted the process before later developing consensus with the Taliban; leading first to the September 2019 understanding and then the February 2020 final agreement, according to which the pullout was to be completed by May 2021.
However, the Biden administration’s initial decision to complete the process by the upcoming 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks came within a changed regional and international power equation.
A total of 130,000 US and NATO troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 2014 while the remaining 9,600 servicemen had ceased combat operations. Ever since, the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF) have only been receiving air support from the NATO Resolute Support Mission (RSM) for counterinsurgency operations. Major combat operations were the ANDSF’s sole responsibility and it largely remained successful on that front.
Neither the Afghan or regional media, nor civil society have ever doubted Washington’s intentions behind the move, particularly when it kept repeating that this did not mean it was turning away from Afghanistan.
After all, how long could the US continue with this cumbersome exercise. The twenty-year war has cost a staggering $2.26 trillion 240,000 lives, including some 2,300 American soldiers. By all standards, Afghan security forces — who had received advanced training from the world’s most professional military consultants for two long decades and possessed all modern weapons at their disposal — were supposed to stand on their own feet and repel the insurgents’ threat. Hopefully they are doing that well up to their capacity.
What the US did not do was ensure complete cessation of hostilities and resumption of a reliable peace process in Afghanistan before resuming the deferred troop withdrawal. Instead, under the provisions of the unilateral peace deal with the Taliban — the latter were duty bound to begin negotiations with Kabul the follow month. However, this did not happen until September 2020. And even then, this was after the Afghan government released 5,000 Taliban prisoners. The second round of Kabul-Taliban talks was held in January this year while the third one on May 14, during which both sides pledged to speed up the peace process.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, in an article in Foreign Affairs magazine, published back in March, spelled out his government’s peace plan. At the heart of this were the following conditions: ceasefire, formation or interim administration, holding of fresh elections under the Afghan constitution, and the offer to step down in case of a peace deal plan. Yet the Taliban, have always been clear that their vision for Afghanistan includes the enforcement of the Islamic system. Their spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, repeated this as recently as last month, in an interview with Foreign Policy Magazine.
As for the role of regional countries, the so-called Extended Troika — comprising the US, Russia, China and Pakistan — has continued its efforts for the restoration of peace in Afghanistan. In its April 30 meeting in Doha, the group “expected the Taliban to fulfil its counter-terrorism commitment” and “prevent terrorist groups and individuals from using the Afghan soil to threaten the security of any other country”.
This whole scenario reminds of the 2001 US-NATO intervention when critics described it as the beginning of a Great Game: a hypothesis, which, otherwise, never saw the day of light as far as the Caspian gas and oil reserves are concerned.
The Second Great Game is, however, very much likely to materialise in the shape of active hostilities among the big world and regional powers, particularly the US, Russia and China. Indeed, if Washington and its western allies fail to save Afghanistan from falling into a cataclysm, an unbridled land where extremist individuals and groups are have a field day, the country will pose a grave threat to the security and development of the entire region.
This will undoubtedly trigger a Second Cold War, which would exacerbate the US-China rivalries in South China Sea, Washington’s perception of the ever increasing US-China military competition, and reinforce the resurgence of Russia as as a rival to US hegemony.
Leaving Afghanistan in a lawless state means leaving the country at the mercy of hostile groups; all of which have divergent political and sectarian interests. The linkages of these groups with Pakistan, India, Iran, and others, is liable to ignite a multi-pronged war of proxies in the country.
Once this erupts, such all-out war will be confined within Afghanistan’s borders. It will spill out and spread like a jungle fire, threatening not only the fragile fabric of this region but engulfing the whole world.
The author is an Islamabad-based freelance journalist covering South Asia/Central Asia; ahadimayar@gmail.com
Posted for fair use.....
Afghanistan and the Second Great Game - Daily Times
When US President Joe Biden announced in April of this year that he would be pulling out all remaining US troops from Afghanistan by the very beginning of July — the White House administration described it as a shift in “the US global focus from counterinsurgency campaign to current priorities.”...
dailytimes.com.pk
OP-ED
Afghanistan and the Second Great Game
Abdul Hadi Mayar
JUNE 13, 2021
When US President Joe Biden announced in April of this year that he would be pulling out all remaining US troops from Afghanistan by the very beginning of July — the White House administration described it as a shift in “the US global focus from counterinsurgency campaign to current priorities.”
That spoke volumes about the future American plans for the region and the mindset behind the February 2020 agreement that the previous administration inked with Taliban, regarding a complete exit from Afghanistan. Not to mention Washington’s insistence on securing guarantees that the Taliban would not allow terrorist groups to operate on Afghan soil.
Of course, all this had been on the cards since May 2014 when then president Barack Obama announced that all combat operations would stop by the end of that year and troops would fully withdraw by the end of 2016. However, his successor Donald Trump temporarily halted the process before later developing consensus with the Taliban; leading first to the September 2019 understanding and then the February 2020 final agreement, according to which the pullout was to be completed by May 2021.
However, the Biden administration’s initial decision to complete the process by the upcoming 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks came within a changed regional and international power equation.
A total of 130,000 US and NATO troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 2014 while the remaining 9,600 servicemen had ceased combat operations. Ever since, the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF) have only been receiving air support from the NATO Resolute Support Mission (RSM) for counterinsurgency operations. Major combat operations were the ANDSF’s sole responsibility and it largely remained successful on that front.
Neither the Afghan or regional media, nor civil society have ever doubted Washington’s intentions behind the move, particularly when it kept repeating that this did not mean it was turning away from Afghanistan.
After all, how long could the US continue with this cumbersome exercise. The twenty-year war has cost a staggering $2.26 trillion 240,000 lives, including some 2,300 American soldiers. By all standards, Afghan security forces — who had received advanced training from the world’s most professional military consultants for two long decades and possessed all modern weapons at their disposal — were supposed to stand on their own feet and repel the insurgents’ threat. Hopefully they are doing that well up to their capacity.
What the US did not do was ensure complete cessation of hostilities and resumption of a reliable peace process in Afghanistan before resuming the deferred troop withdrawal. Instead, under the provisions of the unilateral peace deal with the Taliban — the latter were duty bound to begin negotiations with Kabul the follow month. However, this did not happen until September 2020. And even then, this was after the Afghan government released 5,000 Taliban prisoners. The second round of Kabul-Taliban talks was held in January this year while the third one on May 14, during which both sides pledged to speed up the peace process.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, in an article in Foreign Affairs magazine, published back in March, spelled out his government’s peace plan. At the heart of this were the following conditions: ceasefire, formation or interim administration, holding of fresh elections under the Afghan constitution, and the offer to step down in case of a peace deal plan. Yet the Taliban, have always been clear that their vision for Afghanistan includes the enforcement of the Islamic system. Their spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, repeated this as recently as last month, in an interview with Foreign Policy Magazine.
As for the role of regional countries, the so-called Extended Troika — comprising the US, Russia, China and Pakistan — has continued its efforts for the restoration of peace in Afghanistan. In its April 30 meeting in Doha, the group “expected the Taliban to fulfil its counter-terrorism commitment” and “prevent terrorist groups and individuals from using the Afghan soil to threaten the security of any other country”.
This whole scenario reminds of the 2001 US-NATO intervention when critics described it as the beginning of a Great Game: a hypothesis, which, otherwise, never saw the day of light as far as the Caspian gas and oil reserves are concerned.
The Second Great Game is, however, very much likely to materialise in the shape of active hostilities among the big world and regional powers, particularly the US, Russia and China. Indeed, if Washington and its western allies fail to save Afghanistan from falling into a cataclysm, an unbridled land where extremist individuals and groups are have a field day, the country will pose a grave threat to the security and development of the entire region.
This will undoubtedly trigger a Second Cold War, which would exacerbate the US-China rivalries in South China Sea, Washington’s perception of the ever increasing US-China military competition, and reinforce the resurgence of Russia as as a rival to US hegemony.
Leaving Afghanistan in a lawless state means leaving the country at the mercy of hostile groups; all of which have divergent political and sectarian interests. The linkages of these groups with Pakistan, India, Iran, and others, is liable to ignite a multi-pronged war of proxies in the country.
Once this erupts, such all-out war will be confined within Afghanistan’s borders. It will spill out and spread like a jungle fire, threatening not only the fragile fabric of this region but engulfing the whole world.
The author is an Islamabad-based freelance journalist covering South Asia/Central Asia; ahadimayar@gmail.com
jward
passin' thru
Afghan IS group claims sticky bomb attacks in western Kabul
By TAMEEM AKHGAR40 minutes ago
Afghan security personnel inspect the site of a bomb explosion in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, June 12, 2021. Separate bombs hit two minivans in a mostly Shiite neighborhood in the Afghan capital Saturday, killing several people and wounding others, the Interior Ministry said. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for bombing two minivans in a mostly Shiite neighborhood in the Afghan capital that killed seven people. Among the dead were two employees of Afghanistan’s state-run film company, a colleague said Sunday.
In a statement issued late Saturday, Afghanistan’s IS affiliate said its operatives blew up two minivans carrying “disbeliever Shiites” using sticky bombs. Sticky bombs slapped onto cars trapped in Kabul’s chaotic traffic are the newest weapons terrorizing Afghans in the increasingly lawless nation.
Film director Sahra Karimi in a tweet Sunday said Fatima Mohammadi and Tayiba Musavi, who worked for the Afghan Film Organization, were among the six killed in the first attack. Their families identified their burned bodies in the forensic hospital of Kabul, she said.
Karimi said Mohammadi and Musavi were animators working on an animated film for children and they were returning home when they were attacked.
The Saturday attacks targeted minivans on the same road about 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) apart in a neighborhood in western Kabul. The second bombing took place in front of Muhammad Ali Jinnah hospital, where a majority of COVID-19 patients are admitted, killing one and wounding four.
In some west Kabul neighborhoods populated mostly by members of the minority Hazara ethnic group, just going out for errands can be dangerous. The Islamic State group has carried out similar bombings in the area, including four attacks on four minivans earlier this month that killed at least 18 people.
Hazaras are mostly Shiite Muslims. Shiites are a minority in mostly Sunni Afghanistan and the IS affiliate has declared war against them.
An attack on a Kabul school on May 8 killed nearly 100 people, all of them members of the Hazara ethnic minority and most of them young girls just leaving class.
___
Associated Press writer Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed to this report.
apnews.com
By TAMEEM AKHGAR40 minutes ago
Afghan security personnel inspect the site of a bomb explosion in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, June 12, 2021. Separate bombs hit two minivans in a mostly Shiite neighborhood in the Afghan capital Saturday, killing several people and wounding others, the Interior Ministry said. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for bombing two minivans in a mostly Shiite neighborhood in the Afghan capital that killed seven people. Among the dead were two employees of Afghanistan’s state-run film company, a colleague said Sunday.
In a statement issued late Saturday, Afghanistan’s IS affiliate said its operatives blew up two minivans carrying “disbeliever Shiites” using sticky bombs. Sticky bombs slapped onto cars trapped in Kabul’s chaotic traffic are the newest weapons terrorizing Afghans in the increasingly lawless nation.
Film director Sahra Karimi in a tweet Sunday said Fatima Mohammadi and Tayiba Musavi, who worked for the Afghan Film Organization, were among the six killed in the first attack. Their families identified their burned bodies in the forensic hospital of Kabul, she said.
Karimi said Mohammadi and Musavi were animators working on an animated film for children and they were returning home when they were attacked.
The Saturday attacks targeted minivans on the same road about 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) apart in a neighborhood in western Kabul. The second bombing took place in front of Muhammad Ali Jinnah hospital, where a majority of COVID-19 patients are admitted, killing one and wounding four.
In some west Kabul neighborhoods populated mostly by members of the minority Hazara ethnic group, just going out for errands can be dangerous. The Islamic State group has carried out similar bombings in the area, including four attacks on four minivans earlier this month that killed at least 18 people.
Hazaras are mostly Shiite Muslims. Shiites are a minority in mostly Sunni Afghanistan and the IS affiliate has declared war against them.
An attack on a Kabul school on May 8 killed nearly 100 people, all of them members of the Hazara ethnic minority and most of them young girls just leaving class.
___
Associated Press writer Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed to this report.
Afghan IS group claims sticky bomb attacks in western Kabul
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for bombing two minivans in a mostly Shiite neighborhood in the Afghan capital that killed seven people.
apnews.com
Hummm......
Posted for fair use.....
National Security
NATO allies seek clarity on maintaining secure facilities in Afghanistan following troop withdrawal
By
Karen DeYoung
June 13, 2021 at 8:00 a.m. PDT
2 Comments
With fewer than 100 days before the Sept. 11 deadline President Biden has set for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan, allies in the two-decade-long war are anxiously awaiting U.S. guidance on what comes next.
The administration has issued broad commitments to maintain its diplomatic presence and massive aid programs there, and to keeping terrorists from using Afghanistan as a launchpad for global attacks.
But NATO and other partners are increasingly concerned about the details, from how Kabul’s international airport and the main medical facility that diplomats and aid workers depend on will be kept operational and secure, to where counterterrorism surveillance and other assets will be based outside Afghanistan.
Allies are hopeful that Biden will provide some answers — or at least more reassurance that they soon will be forthcoming — at the NATO summit he will attend in Brussels on Monday. U.S. and NATO officials have said Afghanistan is high on the agenda for the meeting.
U.S. lawmakers, assuming a likely Taliban takeover, have expressed concerns about counterterrorism, the future of Afghan women and minorities, and the safety of Afghans who worked as aides and interpreters for U.S. troops and other personnel. About 18,000 of them — along with their families — have applied for special U.S. immigrant visas.
Some lawmakers have raised the specter of Vietnam, where U.S. diplomats and their Vietnamese employees crowded onto rooftops for helicopter rescue as North Vietnamese troops entered the capital. “I remember . . . the first year I was here they had the fall of Saigon and we saw the chaotic extradition from there,” Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the Senate’s most senior member, said of the 1975 exodus.
“I want to know what it means to our embassies . . . I assume you have contingency plans . . . is that correct?” Leahy asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Afghan war enters more brutal phase as U.S. troops begin pullout
Blinken, who appeared in both the Senate and the House last week, provided assurances but few details. “We are not withdrawing,” he told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “We are staying. The embassy is staying. Our programs are staying. We are working to make sure other partners stay; we are building all of that up.”
“Whatever happens in Afghanistan, if there is a significant deterioration in security, that could well happen . . . I do not think it is going to be something that happens from a Friday to a Monday,” he told lawmakers.
U.S. Central Command head Gen. Kenneth McKenzie told reporters at a briefing Monday that the departure of about 3,000 U.S. troops and removal of their equipment — including Afghan-based U.S. aircraft that could prevent, or at least delay, a Taliban takeover of Kabul — is “about halfway finished.” Some assessments have indicated completion as soon as the end of next month.
McKenzie stressed the importance of progress in political negotiations between the militants and the Afghan government that have achieved little since they began 10 months ago.
“It is critical that the parties come together,” he said. “As we pull out, there needs to be something political that’s left in place. I think the government of Afghanistan is willing to do that. I’m not sure the Taliban is willing to do that.”
“Now is the time, and unfortunately, time is now becoming very short,” McKenzie said.
A member of the Afghan government negotiating team said in Kabul that “on and off meetings” are still taking place in Doha, the Qatari capital, but so far nothing “substantial” has been discussed and a “serious and meaningful process” has not even begun.
Blinken has said repeatedly that Afghanistan’s need for international recognition and assistance, which will not be forthcoming if the Taliban takes over by force, are the best incentives for the militants to make a deal.
Others are less sure that the Taliban is the only impediment to a political settlement.
President Ashraf Ghani has long rejected a power-sharing agreement, proposed by Blinken this spring, and remains steadfast in insisting elections must decide any future Afghan government. Taliban leaders have expressed strong opposition to participating in any government headed by Ghani and elections they consider a Western construct.
Intense international diplomatic pressure on Kabul to reach some kind of accommodation with the Taliban is splintering Ghani’s government. Rather than unify and throw their support behind the country’s elected leadership, many of Afghanistan’s key military and political power brokers are acting independently, seeking protection for themselves and their constituents.
Senior U.S. officials now believe an agreement is extremely unlikely. While the Taliban has been making rapid gains against Afghanistan security forces in more rural areas, some believe the militants are waiting for the U.S. withdrawal to be completed before they launch a full offensive in major cities.
Afghan troops have performed better than expected in some situations, but the momentum is definitely with the Taliban. And as Afghan politics become more fragmented, many officials believe the NATO-trained Afghan forces will follow suit.
In addition to the United States, thousands of NATO and other partner forces from 36 countries participating in Operation Resolute Support in Afghanistan are also packing up for departure. While the United States has had the largest contingent, others with significant numbers in Afghanistan include Germany, Italy, Britain, Romania and Georgia.
In a meeting last week with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “reaffirmed our commitment to doing what we can to help our Resolute Support partners,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Wednesday.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says ‘need to rebuild trust’ after Trump
NATO plans to continue its mission of training Afghan security forces outside of Afghanistan, but Stoltenberg declined in an interview to specify where that would take place. “It’s an ongoing process,” he said of questions that still need to be answered.
“There will always be issues that have to be sorted out,” he said, adding that the important thing was for alliance members to “sit down and address” them together.
U.S. officials have emphasized Biden’s determination to consult with the allies, a contrast the president has drawn between his administration and that of Donald Trump. But some NATO members, who found consultation lacking before Biden’s withdrawal announcement, remain concerned at the number of things still to be “sorted out.”
“Nothing is settled,” said a senior European official, one of several representatives of NATO nations who discussed the sensitive discussions on the condition of anonymity. “Counterterrorism is still being discussed.”
“It’s likely that the president will confirm at the NATO summit that the Americans will keep their embassy [in Kabul] with all the trimmings that requires,” the official said. “But we need to know who’s going to run the hospital and how comprehensive it will be. Who’s going to look after the airport? What sort of arrangements in the international zone . . . are available to other embassies besides the Americans? We need to know how to get in and out of Kabul, [and] what the plan is in broad terms for the peace process.”
“The commander on the ground is American,” and the Americans have the most troops, the official said. “It’s not unreasonable to think the starting point is what the U.S. believes is feasible.”
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan declined last week to discuss ongoing talks with Pakistan and other neighboring countries — including a steady stream of conversations with Central Asian nations to the north of Afghanistan — about providing a platform for ongoing U.S. counterterrorism operations.
“What I will say is that we are talking to a wide range of countries about how we build effective over-the-horizon capacity, both from an intelligence and from a defensive perspective to be able to suppress the terrorism threat in Afghanistan,” he said.
Asked about the airport and medical facility in Kabul, McKenzie said that “our plans are very far advanced on what our posture is going to look like after we complete the withdrawal” of U.S. forces “and of course our NATO and other partners there.”
But while “I recognize it’s a subject of abiding interest to many people,” he said, making such information public could give tactical advantage “to those who would attack us.”
Health-care standards in Kabul are so poor that most embassies would be forced to shut down if the medical facility adjacent to the international airport, equipped to provide care to diplomats and NATO personnel, although without an intensive care capability, was not able to remain operational and in a secure environment.
The airport itself has been protected and run by Turkish troops during Resolute Support, and discussions about continuing that task after withdrawal are ongoing, diplomats from both countries said.
“Security at the airport will be important not only for the United States but also for other nations to maintain their diplomatic presence in Kabul,” Kirby said. Without it, access — and escape routes — as well as the flow of promised aid would be difficult if not impossible.
The subject will loom large at a bilateral meeting Monday between Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the Brussels summit. Relations between Turkey and both the United States and NATO have been strained over a number of issues, including U.S. sanctions imposed following Turkey’s purchase of a sophisticated Russian missile defense system, regional policy differences and human rights.
Turkey, which has about 500 troops in Afghanistan and says it would need more for the airport mission, has made clear it intends to exact a price for its ongoing services. “We intend to stay in Afghanistan depending on conditions,” Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Monday. “What are our conditions? Political, financial and logistical support.”
But a Taliban statement issued Saturday may force all of the allies to think again. While Afghanistan needs and welcomes “selfless and humanitarian” international assistance, it said, the militants would view any outside forces remaining in Afghanistan as “occupiers” and treat them accordingly.
“The presence of foreign forces under whatever name and by whichever country in our homeland is unacceptable,” the statement said. “Every inch of Afghan soil, its airports and security of foreign embassies and diplomatic offices is the responsibility of the Afghans,” and no one “should hold out hope of keeping military or security presence in our country.”
Susannah George in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
Posted for fair use.....
National Security
NATO allies seek clarity on maintaining secure facilities in Afghanistan following troop withdrawal
By
Karen DeYoung
June 13, 2021 at 8:00 a.m. PDT
2 Comments
With fewer than 100 days before the Sept. 11 deadline President Biden has set for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan, allies in the two-decade-long war are anxiously awaiting U.S. guidance on what comes next.
The administration has issued broad commitments to maintain its diplomatic presence and massive aid programs there, and to keeping terrorists from using Afghanistan as a launchpad for global attacks.
But NATO and other partners are increasingly concerned about the details, from how Kabul’s international airport and the main medical facility that diplomats and aid workers depend on will be kept operational and secure, to where counterterrorism surveillance and other assets will be based outside Afghanistan.
Allies are hopeful that Biden will provide some answers — or at least more reassurance that they soon will be forthcoming — at the NATO summit he will attend in Brussels on Monday. U.S. and NATO officials have said Afghanistan is high on the agenda for the meeting.
U.S. lawmakers, assuming a likely Taliban takeover, have expressed concerns about counterterrorism, the future of Afghan women and minorities, and the safety of Afghans who worked as aides and interpreters for U.S. troops and other personnel. About 18,000 of them — along with their families — have applied for special U.S. immigrant visas.
Some lawmakers have raised the specter of Vietnam, where U.S. diplomats and their Vietnamese employees crowded onto rooftops for helicopter rescue as North Vietnamese troops entered the capital. “I remember . . . the first year I was here they had the fall of Saigon and we saw the chaotic extradition from there,” Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the Senate’s most senior member, said of the 1975 exodus.
“I want to know what it means to our embassies . . . I assume you have contingency plans . . . is that correct?” Leahy asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Afghan war enters more brutal phase as U.S. troops begin pullout
Blinken, who appeared in both the Senate and the House last week, provided assurances but few details. “We are not withdrawing,” he told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “We are staying. The embassy is staying. Our programs are staying. We are working to make sure other partners stay; we are building all of that up.”
“Whatever happens in Afghanistan, if there is a significant deterioration in security, that could well happen . . . I do not think it is going to be something that happens from a Friday to a Monday,” he told lawmakers.
U.S. Central Command head Gen. Kenneth McKenzie told reporters at a briefing Monday that the departure of about 3,000 U.S. troops and removal of their equipment — including Afghan-based U.S. aircraft that could prevent, or at least delay, a Taliban takeover of Kabul — is “about halfway finished.” Some assessments have indicated completion as soon as the end of next month.
McKenzie stressed the importance of progress in political negotiations between the militants and the Afghan government that have achieved little since they began 10 months ago.
“It is critical that the parties come together,” he said. “As we pull out, there needs to be something political that’s left in place. I think the government of Afghanistan is willing to do that. I’m not sure the Taliban is willing to do that.”
“Now is the time, and unfortunately, time is now becoming very short,” McKenzie said.
A member of the Afghan government negotiating team said in Kabul that “on and off meetings” are still taking place in Doha, the Qatari capital, but so far nothing “substantial” has been discussed and a “serious and meaningful process” has not even begun.
Blinken has said repeatedly that Afghanistan’s need for international recognition and assistance, which will not be forthcoming if the Taliban takes over by force, are the best incentives for the militants to make a deal.
Others are less sure that the Taliban is the only impediment to a political settlement.
President Ashraf Ghani has long rejected a power-sharing agreement, proposed by Blinken this spring, and remains steadfast in insisting elections must decide any future Afghan government. Taliban leaders have expressed strong opposition to participating in any government headed by Ghani and elections they consider a Western construct.
Intense international diplomatic pressure on Kabul to reach some kind of accommodation with the Taliban is splintering Ghani’s government. Rather than unify and throw their support behind the country’s elected leadership, many of Afghanistan’s key military and political power brokers are acting independently, seeking protection for themselves and their constituents.
Senior U.S. officials now believe an agreement is extremely unlikely. While the Taliban has been making rapid gains against Afghanistan security forces in more rural areas, some believe the militants are waiting for the U.S. withdrawal to be completed before they launch a full offensive in major cities.
Afghan troops have performed better than expected in some situations, but the momentum is definitely with the Taliban. And as Afghan politics become more fragmented, many officials believe the NATO-trained Afghan forces will follow suit.
In addition to the United States, thousands of NATO and other partner forces from 36 countries participating in Operation Resolute Support in Afghanistan are also packing up for departure. While the United States has had the largest contingent, others with significant numbers in Afghanistan include Germany, Italy, Britain, Romania and Georgia.
In a meeting last week with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “reaffirmed our commitment to doing what we can to help our Resolute Support partners,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Wednesday.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says ‘need to rebuild trust’ after Trump
NATO plans to continue its mission of training Afghan security forces outside of Afghanistan, but Stoltenberg declined in an interview to specify where that would take place. “It’s an ongoing process,” he said of questions that still need to be answered.
“There will always be issues that have to be sorted out,” he said, adding that the important thing was for alliance members to “sit down and address” them together.
U.S. officials have emphasized Biden’s determination to consult with the allies, a contrast the president has drawn between his administration and that of Donald Trump. But some NATO members, who found consultation lacking before Biden’s withdrawal announcement, remain concerned at the number of things still to be “sorted out.”
“Nothing is settled,” said a senior European official, one of several representatives of NATO nations who discussed the sensitive discussions on the condition of anonymity. “Counterterrorism is still being discussed.”
“It’s likely that the president will confirm at the NATO summit that the Americans will keep their embassy [in Kabul] with all the trimmings that requires,” the official said. “But we need to know who’s going to run the hospital and how comprehensive it will be. Who’s going to look after the airport? What sort of arrangements in the international zone . . . are available to other embassies besides the Americans? We need to know how to get in and out of Kabul, [and] what the plan is in broad terms for the peace process.”
“The commander on the ground is American,” and the Americans have the most troops, the official said. “It’s not unreasonable to think the starting point is what the U.S. believes is feasible.”
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan declined last week to discuss ongoing talks with Pakistan and other neighboring countries — including a steady stream of conversations with Central Asian nations to the north of Afghanistan — about providing a platform for ongoing U.S. counterterrorism operations.
“What I will say is that we are talking to a wide range of countries about how we build effective over-the-horizon capacity, both from an intelligence and from a defensive perspective to be able to suppress the terrorism threat in Afghanistan,” he said.
Asked about the airport and medical facility in Kabul, McKenzie said that “our plans are very far advanced on what our posture is going to look like after we complete the withdrawal” of U.S. forces “and of course our NATO and other partners there.”
But while “I recognize it’s a subject of abiding interest to many people,” he said, making such information public could give tactical advantage “to those who would attack us.”
Health-care standards in Kabul are so poor that most embassies would be forced to shut down if the medical facility adjacent to the international airport, equipped to provide care to diplomats and NATO personnel, although without an intensive care capability, was not able to remain operational and in a secure environment.
The airport itself has been protected and run by Turkish troops during Resolute Support, and discussions about continuing that task after withdrawal are ongoing, diplomats from both countries said.
“Security at the airport will be important not only for the United States but also for other nations to maintain their diplomatic presence in Kabul,” Kirby said. Without it, access — and escape routes — as well as the flow of promised aid would be difficult if not impossible.
The subject will loom large at a bilateral meeting Monday between Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the Brussels summit. Relations between Turkey and both the United States and NATO have been strained over a number of issues, including U.S. sanctions imposed following Turkey’s purchase of a sophisticated Russian missile defense system, regional policy differences and human rights.
Turkey, which has about 500 troops in Afghanistan and says it would need more for the airport mission, has made clear it intends to exact a price for its ongoing services. “We intend to stay in Afghanistan depending on conditions,” Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Monday. “What are our conditions? Political, financial and logistical support.”
But a Taliban statement issued Saturday may force all of the allies to think again. While Afghanistan needs and welcomes “selfless and humanitarian” international assistance, it said, the militants would view any outside forces remaining in Afghanistan as “occupiers” and treat them accordingly.
“The presence of foreign forces under whatever name and by whichever country in our homeland is unacceptable,” the statement said. “Every inch of Afghan soil, its airports and security of foreign embassies and diplomatic offices is the responsibility of the Afghans,” and no one “should hold out hope of keeping military or security presence in our country.”
Susannah George in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
Posted for fair use.....
gulfnews.com
COMMENT
As American troops exit Afghanistan, scramble for power begins
Country stands at a crossroad and it is in everyone’s interest that peace is prioritised
Published: June 13, 2021 13:44Sajjad Ashraf, Special to Gulf News
As the US and Nato military withdraws from Afghanistan as per the deadline set by President Joe Biden, the country is sliding into uncertainty. The sense of panic and power vacuum is growing in Kabul.
Even though intra-Afghan dialogue technically continues intermittently in Doha, the Taliban are moving in to fill the space being ceded by the Americans. Fighting (of varying intensity) is reportedly going on in at least 26 of the 34 Afghan provinces. With no sign of negotiated peace, hostilities between the Taliban and the Kabul government are likely to continue.
America appears to be in a rush to vacate. Weary of the ‘forever war’, no one in the US wants repeat pictures of American helicopters on embassy rooftops to rescue ‘collaborators’ as was the case in Vietnam.
Fast forward to 2021 as another ‘super power’ withdraws from Afghanistan after its ‘longest war’ with every possibility of Taliban — their adversaries whom they scoffed at and then ended up signing an agreement with — set to make a comeback for power.
No viable peace plan
Speaking at the 32nd anniversary of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani made an insightful point that the civil war that devastated Afghanistan “was caused not by the departure of Soviet troops, but by the failure to formulate a viable plan for Afghanistan’s future.”
No lesson has been learnt from that disastrous experience. Invading Afghanistan in a huff, America found itself sucked in a country about which Alexander the Great famously warned about the “the revenge of the Afghan.” Like all retreating armies, US may be leaving many to a similar fate.
In this state of general melee, power vacuum is being filled by the Taliban and by various warlords. In the absence of state protection, the rise of militias is inevitable. There is also a considerable risk of the Kabul government, Taliban, various warlords and other groups contesting for space and leaving the country in a state of civil war.
Afghanistan’s importance derives from its location as a bridge between South and Central Asia. Unconfirmed reports indicate that Afghanistan is sitting atop trillions of dollars of minerals. Without peace in Afghanistan, Central Asian energy resources will remain underexploited.
Anyone who dominates Afghanistan potentially influences flow of these resources. Pertinently, the land mass comprising Afghanistan has historically had an oversized importance for those seeking power and influence. In the process, the Afghan people have long been victims of games among various rivals. The challenge for any incoming Kabul government is therefore, formidable.
US troop withdrawal
The troop withdrawal leaves the Kabul regime to face a resurgent Taliban. The subsequent power struggle will set the stage for intervention by regional players like Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran. For Pakistan, especially, with almost 2,700km border and Pashtuns straddling both sides, developments in Afghanistan — are of critical importance.
With more than four decades of conflict in Afghanistan and a long, porous border (coupled with the same ethnic tribes either side), a fresh conflict in Afghanistan may inevitably spill over into Pakistan, causing both domestic and foreign policy challenges for Islamabad.
A Taliban victory on ground, which appears likely, might embolden the extremist elements within Pakistan too. Conversely, the Taliban presence in Kabul provides a degree of leverage to Pakistan.
Underlying the power play in Afghanistan is the perennial India-Pakistan rivalry that continues to play out in Afghanistan. Managing this conflict will become a challenge by itself. India’s main interest in Afghanistan is to obtain land access through Pakistan to the Central Asian markets.
This is unlikely under the current state of relations between Islamabad and New Delhi. In this game of influence peddling, Afghanistan becomes a battle ground.
Over the coming weeks and months, the developments in Afghanistan will be keenly watched in the Western capitals and in the region. The country now stands at a very critical crossroad and it is in everyone’s interest that peace and stability be prioritised.
The people of Afghanistan and the broader region deserve nothing less.
Sajjad Ashraf served as an adjunct professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore from 2009 to 2017. He was a member of Pakistan Foreign Service from 1973 to 2008 and served as ambassador in several countries.
As American troops exit Afghanistan, scramble for power begins
Country stands at a crossroad and it is in everyone’s interest that peace is prioritised
gulfnews.com
COMMENT
As American troops exit Afghanistan, scramble for power begins
Country stands at a crossroad and it is in everyone’s interest that peace is prioritised
Published: June 13, 2021 13:44Sajjad Ashraf, Special to Gulf News
As the US and Nato military withdraws from Afghanistan as per the deadline set by President Joe Biden, the country is sliding into uncertainty. The sense of panic and power vacuum is growing in Kabul.
Even though intra-Afghan dialogue technically continues intermittently in Doha, the Taliban are moving in to fill the space being ceded by the Americans. Fighting (of varying intensity) is reportedly going on in at least 26 of the 34 Afghan provinces. With no sign of negotiated peace, hostilities between the Taliban and the Kabul government are likely to continue.
America appears to be in a rush to vacate. Weary of the ‘forever war’, no one in the US wants repeat pictures of American helicopters on embassy rooftops to rescue ‘collaborators’ as was the case in Vietnam.
Fast forward to 2021 as another ‘super power’ withdraws from Afghanistan after its ‘longest war’ with every possibility of Taliban — their adversaries whom they scoffed at and then ended up signing an agreement with — set to make a comeback for power.
No viable peace plan
Speaking at the 32nd anniversary of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani made an insightful point that the civil war that devastated Afghanistan “was caused not by the departure of Soviet troops, but by the failure to formulate a viable plan for Afghanistan’s future.”
No lesson has been learnt from that disastrous experience. Invading Afghanistan in a huff, America found itself sucked in a country about which Alexander the Great famously warned about the “the revenge of the Afghan.” Like all retreating armies, US may be leaving many to a similar fate.
In this state of general melee, power vacuum is being filled by the Taliban and by various warlords. In the absence of state protection, the rise of militias is inevitable. There is also a considerable risk of the Kabul government, Taliban, various warlords and other groups contesting for space and leaving the country in a state of civil war.
Afghanistan’s importance derives from its location as a bridge between South and Central Asia. Unconfirmed reports indicate that Afghanistan is sitting atop trillions of dollars of minerals. Without peace in Afghanistan, Central Asian energy resources will remain underexploited.
Anyone who dominates Afghanistan potentially influences flow of these resources. Pertinently, the land mass comprising Afghanistan has historically had an oversized importance for those seeking power and influence. In the process, the Afghan people have long been victims of games among various rivals. The challenge for any incoming Kabul government is therefore, formidable.
US troop withdrawal
The troop withdrawal leaves the Kabul regime to face a resurgent Taliban. The subsequent power struggle will set the stage for intervention by regional players like Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran. For Pakistan, especially, with almost 2,700km border and Pashtuns straddling both sides, developments in Afghanistan — are of critical importance.
With more than four decades of conflict in Afghanistan and a long, porous border (coupled with the same ethnic tribes either side), a fresh conflict in Afghanistan may inevitably spill over into Pakistan, causing both domestic and foreign policy challenges for Islamabad.
A Taliban victory on ground, which appears likely, might embolden the extremist elements within Pakistan too. Conversely, the Taliban presence in Kabul provides a degree of leverage to Pakistan.
Underlying the power play in Afghanistan is the perennial India-Pakistan rivalry that continues to play out in Afghanistan. Managing this conflict will become a challenge by itself. India’s main interest in Afghanistan is to obtain land access through Pakistan to the Central Asian markets.
This is unlikely under the current state of relations between Islamabad and New Delhi. In this game of influence peddling, Afghanistan becomes a battle ground.
Over the coming weeks and months, the developments in Afghanistan will be keenly watched in the Western capitals and in the region. The country now stands at a very critical crossroad and it is in everyone’s interest that peace and stability be prioritised.
The people of Afghanistan and the broader region deserve nothing less.
Sajjad Ashraf served as an adjunct professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore from 2009 to 2017. He was a member of Pakistan Foreign Service from 1973 to 2008 and served as ambassador in several countries.
Hummm.....
Posted for fair use.....
www.wsj.com
An Alternative to the Afghan Pullout
Biden presents a false choice between total withdrawal and ‘forever wars.’
By James Inhofe
June 13, 2021 4:25 pm ET
I had the opportunity this month to visit and thank U.S. troops stationed around the world. Some of our troops are too young to remember 9/11, but that day is etched in my memory and the heart of our nation.
The threat we saw that day is why we went to Afghanistan in 2001. The conditions on the ground had created an incubator for terrorists with international ambitions. Our troops went to prevent further attacks on the U.S. and our allies.
Unfortunately, President Biden chose to ignore the conditions on the ground and withdraw all U.S. troops by Sept. 11 of this year—a purely political decision. The Biden administration pretends there are only two options: unconditional U.S. withdrawal, or a “forever war.” Nobody wants to see U.S. troops in Afghanistan forever. But there is a third option: maintaining a relatively small troop presence until the conditions outlined in the 2020 U.S.-Taliban Agreement are fully implemented.
As we saw after President Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, terrorists will exploit a security vacuum. Two and a half years after U.S. troops left Iraq, ISIS captured Mosul. It took five years, tens of thousands of troops and more than 30,000 airstrikes to destroy the physical caliphate......(rest is behind payway...HC)
Posted for fair use.....
Opinion | An Alternative to the Afghan Pullout
Biden presents a false choice between total withdrawal and ‘forever wars.’
www.wsj.com
An Alternative to the Afghan Pullout
Biden presents a false choice between total withdrawal and ‘forever wars.’
By James Inhofe
June 13, 2021 4:25 pm ET
I had the opportunity this month to visit and thank U.S. troops stationed around the world. Some of our troops are too young to remember 9/11, but that day is etched in my memory and the heart of our nation.
The threat we saw that day is why we went to Afghanistan in 2001. The conditions on the ground had created an incubator for terrorists with international ambitions. Our troops went to prevent further attacks on the U.S. and our allies.
Unfortunately, President Biden chose to ignore the conditions on the ground and withdraw all U.S. troops by Sept. 11 of this year—a purely political decision. The Biden administration pretends there are only two options: unconditional U.S. withdrawal, or a “forever war.” Nobody wants to see U.S. troops in Afghanistan forever. But there is a third option: maintaining a relatively small troop presence until the conditions outlined in the 2020 U.S.-Taliban Agreement are fully implemented.
As we saw after President Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, terrorists will exploit a security vacuum. Two and a half years after U.S. troops left Iraq, ISIS captured Mosul. It took five years, tens of thousands of troops and more than 30,000 airstrikes to destroy the physical caliphate......(rest is behind payway...HC)
Posted for fair use.....
Taliban takes control of 30 districts in past six weeks
By Bill Roggio | June 14, 2021 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio
In the six weeks since the May 1 deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan, the Taliban has seized control of 32 additional districts, their reach spanning half of the country’s 34 provinces. The Afghan government has been unable to regain control in any of the 32 districts.
FDD’s Long War Journal has closely tracked the security situation Afghanistan’s districts and updates the status of districts as their control changes on a daily basis. [See Mapping Taliban Contested and Controlled Districts in Afghanistan.]
A June 14 report by TOLONews confirmed LWJ‘s independent assessments of 30 of the 32 fallen districts over the past six weeks (two additional districts went under Taliban control since the article was published).
According to data tracked by LWJ, the Taliban has actually overrun overrun 37 district centers since May 1, however the Afghan military claims to have regained control of three of them (Khanabad and Aliabad in Kunduz, and Khash Rod in Nimruz) over the past several days. Bala Murghab, which fell in may, was retaken days later.
While the Taliban took control of the Washir district center in Helmand, LWJ currently assesses the district as contested, since the Afghan military maintains control of the large base known as Shoraback (formerly Camp Leatherneck and Camp Bastion).
Before May 1, the Taliban controlled 73 districts, according to LWJ‘s assessment. That number has risen to 106 today. The following districts have fallen to the Taliban since May 1, listed in alphabetic order by province. The districts are not confined to one or two geographical regions, but are spread out through all regions and 17 of the 34 provinces in the country:
The Taliban appears to be using local tribal leaders and other influential figures to convince Afghan security personnel and government officials to either surrender or abandon these district centers. On June 12, TOLONews reported that the Ministry of Interior is arrresting “elders–or others–who act as mediators to negotiate between government forces and the Taliban– causing security force members to abandon their posts …”
On June 14, a Member of Parliament from Herat province said that “some districts were handed over to the Taliban in the west without resistance and their equipment was left for militants,” TOLONews reported.
The Taliban has taken advantage of the end of U.S. air support for Afghan forces, which kept the Taliban from taking provincial capitals, and is consolidating its control of remote districts. It is likely that the Taliban will launch the next phase of its offensive to take control of entire provinces, first in the south and east, while keeping up the pressure in the north and west, with the ultimate goal of taking control of Kabul. [See LWJ report, Predicting the coming Taliban offensive.]
The Taliban has actively established a program to convince security personnel to surrender and even join the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the name of the Taliban’s shadow government. In a statement released on Voice of Jihad, the Taliban’s official website, the group says that large numbers of Afghan government officials and security personnel, and in some cases, entire districts, are defecting to the Taliban thanks to its efforts.
This article was updated to include Khas Uruzgan and Gosfandi, which fell to the Taliban shortly after publishing on June 14, 2021.
Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.
Taliban takes control of 30 districts in past six weeks | FDD's Long War Journal
In the six weeks since the May 1 deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan, the Taliban has seized control of 32 additional districts, their reach spanning half of the country's 34 provinces.
www.longwarjournal.org
Taliban takes control of 30 districts in past six weeks
By Bill Roggio | June 14, 2021 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio
In the six weeks since the May 1 deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan, the Taliban has seized control of 32 additional districts, their reach spanning half of the country’s 34 provinces. The Afghan government has been unable to regain control in any of the 32 districts.
FDD’s Long War Journal has closely tracked the security situation Afghanistan’s districts and updates the status of districts as their control changes on a daily basis. [See Mapping Taliban Contested and Controlled Districts in Afghanistan.]
A June 14 report by TOLONews confirmed LWJ‘s independent assessments of 30 of the 32 fallen districts over the past six weeks (two additional districts went under Taliban control since the article was published).
According to data tracked by LWJ, the Taliban has actually overrun overrun 37 district centers since May 1, however the Afghan military claims to have regained control of three of them (Khanabad and Aliabad in Kunduz, and Khash Rod in Nimruz) over the past several days. Bala Murghab, which fell in may, was retaken days later.
While the Taliban took control of the Washir district center in Helmand, LWJ currently assesses the district as contested, since the Afghan military maintains control of the large base known as Shoraback (formerly Camp Leatherneck and Camp Bastion).
Before May 1, the Taliban controlled 73 districts, according to LWJ‘s assessment. That number has risen to 106 today. The following districts have fallen to the Taliban since May 1, listed in alphabetic order by province. The districts are not confined to one or two geographical regions, but are spread out through all regions and 17 of the 34 provinces in the country:
- Arghanjkhwah district in Badakhshan
- Jawand and Bala Murghab districts in Badghis
- Burka district in Baghlan
- Zari district in Balkh
- Pusht Rod and Lash o Joyan districts in Farah
- Dawlat Abad and Qaysar districts in Faryab
- Dih Yak, Jaghatu, Rashidan and Ab Band districts in Ghazni
- Shahrak, Tolak and Saghar districts in Ghor
- Oba district in Herat
- Arghistan district in Kandahar
- Dawlat Shah district in Laghman
- Charkh district in Logar
- Du Ab and Mandol districts in Nuristan
- Gosfandi, Sayyad, and Sozma Qala districts in Sar-I-Pul
- Chora, Gizab, and Khas Uruzgan districts in Uruzgan
- Nirkh and Jalriz districts in Wardak
- Shinkai and Arghandab districts in Zabul
The Taliban appears to be using local tribal leaders and other influential figures to convince Afghan security personnel and government officials to either surrender or abandon these district centers. On June 12, TOLONews reported that the Ministry of Interior is arrresting “elders–or others–who act as mediators to negotiate between government forces and the Taliban– causing security force members to abandon their posts …”
On June 14, a Member of Parliament from Herat province said that “some districts were handed over to the Taliban in the west without resistance and their equipment was left for militants,” TOLONews reported.
The Taliban has taken advantage of the end of U.S. air support for Afghan forces, which kept the Taliban from taking provincial capitals, and is consolidating its control of remote districts. It is likely that the Taliban will launch the next phase of its offensive to take control of entire provinces, first in the south and east, while keeping up the pressure in the north and west, with the ultimate goal of taking control of Kabul. [See LWJ report, Predicting the coming Taliban offensive.]
The Taliban has actively established a program to convince security personnel to surrender and even join the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the name of the Taliban’s shadow government. In a statement released on Voice of Jihad, the Taliban’s official website, the group says that large numbers of Afghan government officials and security personnel, and in some cases, entire districts, are defecting to the Taliban thanks to its efforts.
While the Taliban may be exaggerating the size of the defections, there likely is some truth in the statement given the dramatic fall of 32 districts over the past six weeks, and the Afghan government’s inability to retake hardly any of those districts.
This article was updated to include Khas Uruzgan and Gosfandi, which fell to the Taliban shortly after publishing on June 14, 2021.
Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.
jward
passin' thru
Hard pressed to think of anything lower than a man/ male/ country without loyalty to his friends n those who most deserve it 
Absolutely Shameful!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Afghan allies ‘begging’ for their lives, face Taliban attacks amid US withdrawal
Jun 14, 2021 6:40 PM EDT
By —
Jane Ferguson
During the 20-year American war in Afghanistan, thousands of locals worked for, and with, the United States. As the U.S. departs, many of them are left in profound danger. Earlier this year, Special Correspondent Jane Ferguson profiled a decorated Afghan helicopter pilot whose life was at risk. She returns with updates on his story, and a look at the larger plight of visa-seeking Afghans like him.
Read the Full Transcript
Watch
Watch the Full Episode
Video at source
posted for fair use
www.pbs.org
Absolutely Shameful!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Afghan allies ‘begging’ for their lives, face Taliban attacks amid US withdrawal
Jun 14, 2021 6:40 PM EDT
By —
Jane Ferguson
During the 20-year American war in Afghanistan, thousands of locals worked for, and with, the United States. As the U.S. departs, many of them are left in profound danger. Earlier this year, Special Correspondent Jane Ferguson profiled a decorated Afghan helicopter pilot whose life was at risk. She returns with updates on his story, and a look at the larger plight of visa-seeking Afghans like him.
Read the Full Transcript
- Judy Woodruff:
The United States will soon be leaving Afghanistan. Its scheduled September troop withdrawal could be complete as soon as next month.
During 20 years of American fighting, thousands of Afghans have worked for and with the United States. Now, as the U.S. departs, many of those Afghans are in profound danger.
Earlier this year, special correspondent Jane Ferguson introduced us to a decorated Afghan helicopter pilot whose life was in danger. Now she has an update on his story and a look at the larger plight of those fighting not to be left behind. - Jane Ferguson:
They look like any other family arriving into New York's Kennedy Airport, but they are not. They have escaped a hellish threat to their lives. And this precious moment has taken months of dangerous, exhausting waiting and hoping and praying. - Naiem Asadi, Afghan Pilot:
At this moment I am very happy. I am very happy. Today is the day that I am going to start a new life. So everything is very, very good for us. - Jane Ferguson:
We first met Major Naiem Asadi in his native Afghanistan in January. He was living in hiding in Kabul, marked for death by the Taliban, and threatened with arrest by the Afghan government for trying to leave the country for America while in the military.
Asadi was granted a rare specialist humanitarian visa last fall after his career as a helicopter pilot drew public attention to his proficiency at killing Taliban fighters and his endeavors to save downed American pilots.
His visa was canceled by the Pentagon in November, leaving him and his family in limbo for six months. American human rights lawyer Kimberly Motley took on his case and got the visa reinstated. - Woman:
Welcome to America. - Jane Ferguson:
She arrived with Naiem and his wife and 5-year-old daughter, having traveled to Kabul to escort them to the U.S., and make sure they made it through immigration - Naiem Asadi:
Even though she understands that the security situation is not good in Afghanistan, so she… - Jane Ferguson:
She came anyway. - Naiem Asadi:
Yes, she took that risk and she came to Afghanistan, and she took us out from Afghanistan safely. - Jane Ferguson:
Motley lived in Afghanistan for years, often working pro bono for women who needed legal representation. On this trip back, she was struck by the fear gripping the capital as American troops rushed to leave. - Kimberly Motley, Human Rights Attorney:
Everyone is terrified, Afghans, many Americans and foreigners. - Jane Ferguson:
From a legal standpoint, is it unrealistic to get visas processed in time before American leaves? - Kimberly Motley:
I think it's irresponsible and unrealistic, yes. - Jane Ferguson:
How many lawyers will it take to get people here? - Kimberly Motley:
It's going to take a lot of lawyers. - Jane Ferguson:
Few have the opportunity Asadi had or the legal support. Other Afghans who helped U.S. forces as interpreters have been waiting for years to be issued visas to the U.S. under the Special Immigrant Visa, or SIV, program set up in 2006 to help recruit interpreters to work with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But those visas have been plagued with endless delays and bureaucracy, reducing to a trickle the lucky ones who make it through. Right now, there are 18,000 applications backlogged, not including family members. With President Biden's decision to withdraw all American forces from the country completely, those applicants risk being left behind.
The Taliban is on the doorstep of Kabul, and they have anyone who helped or worked with the U.S. well within their sights
The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan is happening so rapidly, the situation for the Afghans left behind still waiting for visas, is becoming a life-and-death emergency. The campaign here in Washington, D.C., to get them out of there before the Taliban can get to them is intensifying.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers has been pushing for years to get more SIVs issued, and faster. Senator Jeanne Shaheen is a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relation Committee. She worked closely with the late Senator John McCain on the issue and is leading urgent efforts now
- Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH):
It's the right thing to do. It's the moral thing to do. And it's in America's interests long term. - Jane Ferguson:
The 18,000 applicants waiting in line for U.S. visas was the number before the full American withdrawal was announced. - Sen. Jeanne Shaheen:
We assume that number will go up, and that doesn't include families. So, we're looking. We had a meeting, a bipartisan meeting — this is an issue that Republicans and Democrats have worked together on — with the White House a couple of weeks ago to talk about things that we could do that may need to be changed in the law to expedite those visa applications.
And so we are working on that. And we hope to have some legislation that can move very quickly. - Jane Ferguson:
Beyond the moral argument to take care of those who took care of Americans on the battlefield is the wider strategic case to be made. Can the American military be seen abandoning its partners so publicly? - Sen. Jeanne Shaheen:
I think it says to our allies and those people who we want to work with us, can you trust the United States? It raises that question in their minds.
I am old enough to remember when we pulled out of Vietnam and the helicopters taking off with Vietnamese who had helped us holding on, because they knew what was going to happen to them, and then, of course, the migration from all of those who had helped Americans in Vietnam and what happened. So, I don't want to see that again in Afghanistan. - Jane Ferguson:
The shadow of Vietnam has been hanging over the war in Afghanistan for years. Few parallels are as stark as the impossible task of getting out without abandoning local partners to an advancing enemy.
In 1975, although many were left behind, over 100,000 Vietnamese who had worked with America were evacuated to the American island of Guam in the Western Pacific. Once there, and safe, they were housed in camps until their visas were processed and they could settle in the U.S.
That's exactly what a number of lawmakers are now pushing for, saying the plan to process the Afghan visas at the embassy in Kabul will never be fast enough, and the interpreters and their families need to be immediately evacuated to a safe place for processing, even suggesting Guam as the place to do it.
On June 4, a bipartisan group of congress men and women wrote a letter to the White House, stating: "The current SIV process will not work. It is clear that the process will not be rectified in time to help the over 18,000 applicants who need visas before our withdrawal. Our bipartisan working group has concluded that we must evacuate our Afghan friends and allies immediately."
Forty-six years ago, President Ford formed an interagency task force to handle the mass evacuations, and allocated $300 million to fund the efforts. Today, the Pentagon has drawn up plans for the evacuation of Afghan interpreters and their families. But it needs the approval from President Biden to act on them. - Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX):
If we abandon them, we are signing their death warrants. - Jane Ferguson:
Last week, in a tense exchange with Texas Republican Congressman Mike McCaul, Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not answer questions about whether President Biden would give the nod to an evacuation, insisting instead that there is time to process the visas inside Afghanistan.
Tony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State: The embassy's staying. Our programs are staying. We're working to make sure that other partners stay. We're building all of that up. So, I wouldn't necessary equate the departure of our forces in July, August, or by early September with some kind of immediate deterioration in the situation. - Jane Ferguson:
Others strongly disagree. Interpreters and service members in Afghanistan right now are being targeted and killed by the Taliban. Afghans already here argue there is no time. - Janis Shinwari, No One Left Behind:
If they do it, they should do it right now. If they want to start the evacuation, it's the time right now to do it. If you want to start speeding up the process, do it right now. Do not wait until tomorrow. - Jane Ferguson:
Janis Shinwari was a translator working with American forces in Afghanistan before he moved here. He co-founded No One Left Behind, an organization that helps Afghans get on their feet when they arrive here.
These days he fields desperate calls for help from interpreters living in hiding waiting for visas they fear won't come. - Janis Shinwari:
The messages they send me, they are asking for their lives .They are begging for their lives. They say, please help us. - Jane Ferguson:
We took a similar call while reporting this story. One former interpreter now hiding in Kabul says he was injured while working with U.S. troops in Kandahar. - Man:
It's too dangerous for me and for my family. If someone knows that I worked for USA several years and also got wounded for USA, they will kill me. - Jane Ferguson:
With the Taliban advancing across the country and assassinating its enemies in Afghan cities, the government in Kabul has shown it is incapable of keeping citizens safe. - Janis Shinwari:
They're getting stronger. And they have a lot of sources now everywhere. - Jane Ferguson:
Spies. - Janis Shinwari:
Yes, spies. And they have spies in our army, the police, in the, like, civilian, everywhere. And, yes, you cannot hide if you worked for Americans, or that's why they're targeting those people in Kabul. - Jane Ferguson:
Almost as soon as this war began, how to get out of it became a massive foreign policy challenge. The possible collapse of the Afghan government, a Taliban victory, and the human cost of abandoning America's allies there have outlasted three administrations.
The Biden White House faces growing pressure to prove it won't oversee a withdrawal marked by a growing sense of betrayal.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jane Ferguson in Washington.
Watch
Watch the Full Episode
Video at source
posted for fair use
Afghan allies 'begging' for their lives, face Taliban attacks amid US withdrawal
During the 20-year American war in Afghanistan, thousands of locals worked for, and with, the United States. As the U.S. departs, many of them are left in profound danger. Earlier this year, Special Correspondent Jane Ferguson profiled a decorated Afghan helicopter pilot whose life was at risk...
www.pbs.org
jward
passin' thru
James Gordon Meek
@meekwire
An elite unit of 120 Afghan operators known as KKA, created and trained by Delta Force and Rangers, “disappeared” overnight in the northern province of Saripol and photos of bodies are circulating, a source who knew several of them tells me. Other Commandos are quitting in droves
View: https://twitter.com/meekwire/status/1405215549353832458?s=20
jward
passin' thru
OSINTtechnical
@Osinttechnical
45m
Another district fell to the Taliban. More rural, but serves as the entrance to Maymana. Maymana (pop ~150k) is the capital city of Faryab Province, and will absolutely be pressured by the Taliban soon.
View: https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1406150776494473220?s=20
@Osinttechnical
45m
Another district fell to the Taliban. More rural, but serves as the entrance to Maymana. Maymana (pop ~150k) is the capital city of Faryab Province, and will absolutely be pressured by the Taliban soon.
View: https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1406150776494473220?s=20
jward
passin' thru
Taliban rejects Turkish military presence in Afghanistan
The Taliban rejects Turkey’s proposal to keep troops in Afghanistan after the U.S. and NATO forces leave the war-torn country by a Sept. 11 deadline, Voice of America (VOA) reported on Friday.
In his meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels on Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggested that Turkey could retain its troop presence in Afghanistan by talking to the Taliban.
The Taliban’s statement came a day after U.S. officials said President Joe Biden and Turkish President Erdoğan agreed in their meeting Monday that Turkey would continue providing security at the international airport in Afghanistan following the troop pullout.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told VOA that guarding the airports and other locations in the country is the responsibility of Afghans.
“If foreign forces want to retain a military presence here in the name of airport security, Afghans will not allow it and will view them as invaders, be it Turkey or any other country,” Mujahid told VOA.
“In recent meetings and discussions with Turkish diplomats, they had shared with us [Turkey’s] proposed continued military presence here, but we told them it was unacceptable for us. And they assured us that our stance will be conveyed to their leadership,” Mujahid said.
Turkey and America can discuss their bilateral issues, but it is for Afghans alone to decide how to conduct their “internal affairs and expect others to respect it,” he added.
Turkey presently has 500 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan, the largest remaining foreign military contingent, and has played a key non-combat role in NATO missions in the country since 2003.
The U.S.-led military withdrawal, which formally began on May 1, stems from an agreement Washington negotiated with the Taliban in February 2020 aimed at ending nearly 20 years of American involvement in the Afghan war, VOA said.
The Taliban warned that Turkey’s plans to guard and run the Kabul airport would violate the U.S.-Taliban deal, it added.
Posted for fair use
ahvalnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org
- Jun 19 2021 12:49 Gmt+3
- Last Updated On: Jun 19 2021 02:47 Gmt+3
The Taliban rejects Turkey’s proposal to keep troops in Afghanistan after the U.S. and NATO forces leave the war-torn country by a Sept. 11 deadline, Voice of America (VOA) reported on Friday.
In his meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels on Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggested that Turkey could retain its troop presence in Afghanistan by talking to the Taliban.
The Taliban’s statement came a day after U.S. officials said President Joe Biden and Turkish President Erdoğan agreed in their meeting Monday that Turkey would continue providing security at the international airport in Afghanistan following the troop pullout.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told VOA that guarding the airports and other locations in the country is the responsibility of Afghans.
“If foreign forces want to retain a military presence here in the name of airport security, Afghans will not allow it and will view them as invaders, be it Turkey or any other country,” Mujahid told VOA.
“In recent meetings and discussions with Turkish diplomats, they had shared with us [Turkey’s] proposed continued military presence here, but we told them it was unacceptable for us. And they assured us that our stance will be conveyed to their leadership,” Mujahid said.
Turkey and America can discuss their bilateral issues, but it is for Afghans alone to decide how to conduct their “internal affairs and expect others to respect it,” he added.
Turkey presently has 500 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan, the largest remaining foreign military contingent, and has played a key non-combat role in NATO missions in the country since 2003.
The U.S.-led military withdrawal, which formally began on May 1, stems from an agreement Washington negotiated with the Taliban in February 2020 aimed at ending nearly 20 years of American involvement in the Afghan war, VOA said.
The Taliban warned that Turkey’s plans to guard and run the Kabul airport would violate the U.S.-Taliban deal, it added.
Posted for fair use
Taliban rejects Turkish military presence in Afghanistan | Ahval
ahvalnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org
Taliban rejects Turkish military presence in Afghanistan
- Jun 19 2021 12:49 Gmt+3
- Last Updated On: Jun 19 2021 02:47 Gmt+3
The Taliban rejects Turkey’s proposal to keep troops in Afghanistan after the U.S. and NATO forces leave the war-torn country by a Sept. 11 deadline, Voice of America (VOA) reported on Friday.
In his meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels on Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggested that Turkey could retain its troop presence in Afghanistan by talking to the Taliban.
The Taliban’s statement came a day after U.S. officials said President Joe Biden and Turkish President Erdoğan agreed in their meeting Monday that Turkey would continue providing security at the international airport in Afghanistan following the troop pullout.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told VOA that guarding the airports and other locations in the country is the responsibility of Afghans.
“If foreign forces want to retain a military presence here in the name of airport security, Afghans will not allow it and will view them as invaders, be it Turkey or any other country,” Mujahid told VOA.
“In recent meetings and discussions with Turkish diplomats, they had shared with us [Turkey’s] proposed continued military presence here, but we told them it was unacceptable for us. And they assured us that our stance will be conveyed to their leadership,” Mujahid said.
Turkey and America can discuss their bilateral issues, but it is for Afghans alone to decide how to conduct their “internal affairs and expect others to respect it,” he added.
Turkey presently has 500 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan, the largest remaining foreign military contingent, and has played a key non-combat role in NATO missions in the country since 2003.
The U.S.-led military withdrawal, which formally began on May 1, stems from an agreement Washington negotiated with the Taliban in February 2020 aimed at ending nearly 20 years of American involvement in the Afghan war, VOA said.
The Taliban warned that Turkey’s plans to guard and run the Kabul airport would violate the U.S.-Taliban deal, it added.
Posted for fair use
Taliban rejects Turkish military presence in Afghanistan | Ahval
Well considering the Erdogan AKP is moving to recreate the Ottoman Empire, I can see why the Taliban don't want the competition, particularly since the Turks won't play as nice as the other NATO members.
jward
passin' thru
@alexplitsas
5h
The image below is of a CIA officer helping evacuees board a helicopter as the VC approached. The next day, the last helicopter carrying the US Marine Security Detachment left the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam on 30 April, 1975 at 8:23am. This could be Kabul in 180 days.
View: https://twitter.com/alexplitsas/status/1406686408400683015?s=20
5h
The image below is of a CIA officer helping evacuees board a helicopter as the VC approached. The next day, the last helicopter carrying the US Marine Security Detachment left the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam on 30 April, 1975 at 8:23am. This could be Kabul in 180 days.
View: https://twitter.com/alexplitsas/status/1406686408400683015?s=20
jward
passin' thru
Kabul Now·June 20, 2021·1 min read128,800 families displaced by the Taliban attacks
128,800 families have been displaced by the Taliban attacks since the beginning of 1400 (solar year), the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations said.
In a press conference held in Kabul yesterday on June 19, Islamuddin Jurat, spokesperson for the ministry, said the ministry has been trying to help the displaced families with cooperation of international organizations.
According to Mr. Jurat, with the help of United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Afghan government has assisted 75,000 Afghans in refugee camps in Pakistan where they faced economic hardships due to Covid-19 restrictions.
He said the UNHCR distributed 12,000 Pakistani rupees to each family, and 3,840 families received food packages from Turkey and Chinese governments.
There are currently more than four million people internally displaced in Afghanistan, and according to statistics provided by the ministry, more than 2.5 million Afghan refugees live in Pakistan. Out of the 2.5 million refugees, 68 percent of them are from low-income families residing in refugee camps.
In the recent Taliban attacks for territorial control over past 50 days, the militants have overrun 30 districts across the country as the result of which thousands of families have been displaced from their hometowns and country.
128,800 families displaced by the Taliban attacks – KabulNow
128,800 families have been displaced by the Taliban attacks since the beginning of 1400 (solar year), the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations said. In a press conference held in Kabul yesterday on June 19, Islamuddin Jurat, spokesperson for the ministry, said the ministry has been trying to...
kabulnow.af
jward
passin' thru
washingtonpost.com
Death of famed Afghan commander in Taliban massacre highlights the country’s struggles and fears
Pamela Constable
8-10 minutes
KABUL — He was a general's son, a U.S.-trained officer with a dazzling academic record and a daring military reputation.
Col. Sohrab Azimi, a field commander in Afghan special forces that often rescue troops and retake outposts from Taliban attacks, symbolized the country's best hope to fend off an insurgent takeover as U.S. troops began to withdraw from the fight.
Azimi, 31, and his squad of 22 men were massacred Wednesday by Taliban forces while defending a base in northern Faryab province and waiting for reinforcements.
The loss unleashed a flood of emotions across social media — grief, anger and fear that even the nation’s most skilled defenders would be undercut by poor military leadership and the departure of Afghanistan’s major foreign military ally.
At a ceremony outside a military hospital in Kabul on Saturday morning, a Muslim cleric blessed the velvet-draped coffins of Azimi and two other commandos, released by the Taliban and flown to Kabul by the Afghan Air Force.
They were lifted onto artillery trucks, followed by goose-stepping soldiers and a marching band, then loaded into ambulances.
“This is the price we pay for defending our country’s independence, freedom and dignity,” Rangin Dadfar Spanta, a former foreign minister, told the silent, mostly uniformed crowd that included Azimi’s father, a retired army general. The two men, classmates from another era, embraced and wept.
“No one will be allowed to occupy our land or take our freedom away,” Spanta vowed.
But in Faryab, one of numerous provinces where the Taliban has launched repeated assaults in recent months, the mass killing added to a deepening sense of despair and defeat. After weeks of attacks that wore down local security forces and led many to surrender, the highly trained commandos sent to save the day had been surrounded, isolated and mowed down en masse.
“Government forces don’t have the will to fight. Their morale is weak and there is little coordination among the forces,” Sayed Babur Jamal, a provincial legislator, said Saturday.
He said the insurgents control eight districts in Faryab and continue to overrun military and police bases, seizing military vehicles and weapons from surrendering local forces.
“There is a strong possibility that Faryab will fall,” he said.
Officials say the pace and aggression of Taliban attacks have increased since the Biden administration announced in April that all remaining troops would be withdrawn by Sept. 11. In some areas, local forces have surrendered after negotiations between community elders and the Taliban. In others, departing U.S. troops have destroyed bases or stripped them of everything usable to keep them from falling into Taliban hands.
Despite the drumbeat of attacks, military officials play down the significance of local Taliban advances and note that many are quickly reversed. After the commando slayings in Faryab’s Dawlat Abad district, the district was recaptured by Afghan forces by Thursday, with insurgents suffering heavy casualties, authorities said.
“The situation that has happened does not mean the victory and power of the Taliban,” Fawad Ahmad, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, said Friday in response to written questions. He said the Afghan security forces have sufficient “combat and professional capabilities” to defend Afghanistan.
“A Taliban victory through military means is impossible,” he said.
Many Afghans say the curtailing of U.S. airstrikes has been a critical loss for ground forces, and some suggest that such strikes could have saved Azimi and his men. Another widespread complaint is ongoing discord and poor coordination by senior Afghan military officials. Some field commanders, desperate for supplies and food, have resorted to appealing for help on social media.
The volatility in Afghanistan could affect how the U.S. military departs in coming days.
On Saturday, two U.S. defense officials said that discussions are underway that would delay the U.S. military’s expected withdrawal from its largest airfield in Afghanistan, Bagram air base, by early July.
One official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that some service members at Bagram already have been told to expect their departure to be postponed. The second official acknowledged that discussions to delay are underway, without describing the plan as definitive.
The air base has been used for years to launch both manned strike aircraft and drones. Without it, the United States is expected to rely on long-range flights from bases in the Middle East to provide air support in Afghanistan.
Officials at the top U.S. military headquarters in Kabul referred questions about the delay to counterparts in the United States, who declined to comment on any delay.
“While we cannot provide any timeline for closure of any specific facility in Afghanistan, we are still firmly on track to safely and deliberately withdraw all combat forces from Afghanistan by September in accordance with the direction of the president,” Navy Capt. Bill Urban said.
Davood Moradian, director of the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies and a distant relative of Azimi, said the Faryab fiasco exposed a “huge failure of the system” as the country confronts several problems at once.
“People love the army and admire the commandos, but the government and the military are poorly led, U.S. troops are leaving, and the Taliban are feeling bolder. It is a tragic triangle,” he said.
For the Taliban, Azimi’s killing was a potential propaganda coup.
The group released a video showing him with bullet holes in his chest, lying amid the corpses of men he had led in battle. But Azimi’s father, Zahir, a former Defense Ministry spokesman, wrote on Facebook that he felt pride when he saw the bullets had struck his son from the front.
“You fought face to face with your enemy until the last moment,” he wrote.
In an interview at his home Friday, the elder Azimi also noted that his son — who studied in the United States and Turkey, held several academic degrees and married an American citizen — could have easily chosen a prestigious desk job or foreign posting.
“He had many opportunities, but he wanted to go into operations. Regular Afghan families related to him, those who lost husbands and sons,” he said.
The elder Azimi, 67, who fought Taliban extremists before they took power in 1996, said he was disturbed by the lack of planning that had preceded the dangerous mission in Faryab, leaving the commandos with no backup.
He said that with up to 50 of 370 Afghan districts under Taliban control or attack, it would be better to temporarily withdraw from some vulnerable areas and prevent bloodshed.
The ex-general said he respected Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces but that the president was wrong to rush into the pullout just months after U.S. officials signed a deal with Taliban leaders.
“[The Taliban] came to believe they were winning, and they began to attract thousands of volunteer fighters and support from abroad,” he said. “They have a lot more capacity now.”
Among the hundreds of visitors who called on the Azimi family in recent days, former classmates of the slain commando leader were far more critical. Some bitterly accused the United States of abandoning them for selfish interests at the worst possible time.
“They left the fight and left the field to the Taliban,” said one former classmate. He identified himself only as Sulieman to express a critical opinion. “They preached values like democracy, but now they are going, and we are losing our best men, the real warriors and patriots like Sohrab who fought for those values.”
The slain commando leader was promoted posthumously to brigadier general. His body was flown Saturday to Herat, his ancestral base in far western Afghanistan, and buried before sunset.
Sharif Hassan in Kabul and Dan Lamothe in Columbus, Ga., contributed to this report.
Correction
An earlier version of this article stated that the International Committee of the Red Cross was involved in the return of the bodies of Sohrab Azimi and two other commandos. The organization says it had no role. The article has been corrected.
[/URL]
Death of famed Afghan commander in Taliban massacre highlights the country’s struggles and fears
Pamela Constable
8-10 minutes
KABUL — He was a general's son, a U.S.-trained officer with a dazzling academic record and a daring military reputation.
Col. Sohrab Azimi, a field commander in Afghan special forces that often rescue troops and retake outposts from Taliban attacks, symbolized the country's best hope to fend off an insurgent takeover as U.S. troops began to withdraw from the fight.
Azimi, 31, and his squad of 22 men were massacred Wednesday by Taliban forces while defending a base in northern Faryab province and waiting for reinforcements.
The loss unleashed a flood of emotions across social media — grief, anger and fear that even the nation’s most skilled defenders would be undercut by poor military leadership and the departure of Afghanistan’s major foreign military ally.
At a ceremony outside a military hospital in Kabul on Saturday morning, a Muslim cleric blessed the velvet-draped coffins of Azimi and two other commandos, released by the Taliban and flown to Kabul by the Afghan Air Force.
They were lifted onto artillery trucks, followed by goose-stepping soldiers and a marching band, then loaded into ambulances.
“This is the price we pay for defending our country’s independence, freedom and dignity,” Rangin Dadfar Spanta, a former foreign minister, told the silent, mostly uniformed crowd that included Azimi’s father, a retired army general. The two men, classmates from another era, embraced and wept.
“No one will be allowed to occupy our land or take our freedom away,” Spanta vowed.
But in Faryab, one of numerous provinces where the Taliban has launched repeated assaults in recent months, the mass killing added to a deepening sense of despair and defeat. After weeks of attacks that wore down local security forces and led many to surrender, the highly trained commandos sent to save the day had been surrounded, isolated and mowed down en masse.
“Government forces don’t have the will to fight. Their morale is weak and there is little coordination among the forces,” Sayed Babur Jamal, a provincial legislator, said Saturday.
He said the insurgents control eight districts in Faryab and continue to overrun military and police bases, seizing military vehicles and weapons from surrendering local forces.
“There is a strong possibility that Faryab will fall,” he said.
Officials say the pace and aggression of Taliban attacks have increased since the Biden administration announced in April that all remaining troops would be withdrawn by Sept. 11. In some areas, local forces have surrendered after negotiations between community elders and the Taliban. In others, departing U.S. troops have destroyed bases or stripped them of everything usable to keep them from falling into Taliban hands.
Despite the drumbeat of attacks, military officials play down the significance of local Taliban advances and note that many are quickly reversed. After the commando slayings in Faryab’s Dawlat Abad district, the district was recaptured by Afghan forces by Thursday, with insurgents suffering heavy casualties, authorities said.
“The situation that has happened does not mean the victory and power of the Taliban,” Fawad Ahmad, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, said Friday in response to written questions. He said the Afghan security forces have sufficient “combat and professional capabilities” to defend Afghanistan.
“A Taliban victory through military means is impossible,” he said.
Many Afghans say the curtailing of U.S. airstrikes has been a critical loss for ground forces, and some suggest that such strikes could have saved Azimi and his men. Another widespread complaint is ongoing discord and poor coordination by senior Afghan military officials. Some field commanders, desperate for supplies and food, have resorted to appealing for help on social media.
The volatility in Afghanistan could affect how the U.S. military departs in coming days.
On Saturday, two U.S. defense officials said that discussions are underway that would delay the U.S. military’s expected withdrawal from its largest airfield in Afghanistan, Bagram air base, by early July.
One official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that some service members at Bagram already have been told to expect their departure to be postponed. The second official acknowledged that discussions to delay are underway, without describing the plan as definitive.
The air base has been used for years to launch both manned strike aircraft and drones. Without it, the United States is expected to rely on long-range flights from bases in the Middle East to provide air support in Afghanistan.
Officials at the top U.S. military headquarters in Kabul referred questions about the delay to counterparts in the United States, who declined to comment on any delay.
“While we cannot provide any timeline for closure of any specific facility in Afghanistan, we are still firmly on track to safely and deliberately withdraw all combat forces from Afghanistan by September in accordance with the direction of the president,” Navy Capt. Bill Urban said.
Davood Moradian, director of the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies and a distant relative of Azimi, said the Faryab fiasco exposed a “huge failure of the system” as the country confronts several problems at once.
“People love the army and admire the commandos, but the government and the military are poorly led, U.S. troops are leaving, and the Taliban are feeling bolder. It is a tragic triangle,” he said.
For the Taliban, Azimi’s killing was a potential propaganda coup.
The group released a video showing him with bullet holes in his chest, lying amid the corpses of men he had led in battle. But Azimi’s father, Zahir, a former Defense Ministry spokesman, wrote on Facebook that he felt pride when he saw the bullets had struck his son from the front.
“You fought face to face with your enemy until the last moment,” he wrote.
In an interview at his home Friday, the elder Azimi also noted that his son — who studied in the United States and Turkey, held several academic degrees and married an American citizen — could have easily chosen a prestigious desk job or foreign posting.
“He had many opportunities, but he wanted to go into operations. Regular Afghan families related to him, those who lost husbands and sons,” he said.
The elder Azimi, 67, who fought Taliban extremists before they took power in 1996, said he was disturbed by the lack of planning that had preceded the dangerous mission in Faryab, leaving the commandos with no backup.
He said that with up to 50 of 370 Afghan districts under Taliban control or attack, it would be better to temporarily withdraw from some vulnerable areas and prevent bloodshed.
The ex-general said he respected Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces but that the president was wrong to rush into the pullout just months after U.S. officials signed a deal with Taliban leaders.
“[The Taliban] came to believe they were winning, and they began to attract thousands of volunteer fighters and support from abroad,” he said. “They have a lot more capacity now.”
Among the hundreds of visitors who called on the Azimi family in recent days, former classmates of the slain commando leader were far more critical. Some bitterly accused the United States of abandoning them for selfish interests at the worst possible time.
“They left the fight and left the field to the Taliban,” said one former classmate. He identified himself only as Sulieman to express a critical opinion. “They preached values like democracy, but now they are going, and we are losing our best men, the real warriors and patriots like Sohrab who fought for those values.”
The slain commando leader was promoted posthumously to brigadier general. His body was flown Saturday to Herat, his ancestral base in far western Afghanistan, and buried before sunset.
Sharif Hassan in Kabul and Dan Lamothe in Columbus, Ga., contributed to this report.
Correction
An earlier version of this article stated that the International Committee of the Red Cross was involved in the return of the bodies of Sohrab Azimi and two other commandos. The organization says it had no role. The article has been corrected.
[/URL]
Oscar Wilde
Membership Revoked
Ya know, the Taliban folk were gettin things under control 20 year ago or so,
then 'Murka stuck it's nose in and by and large f**cked things up and
continued to do so with regularity.
It's their place, their bidness. Lets pick up our toys and go home cuz wee ain't wanted
there. The indigenous didn't put up much of a fight against the Taliban but were
considerably more ... determined when it came to dissuadin 'Murka.
And wee still ain't seein the pitcher.
O.W.
then 'Murka stuck it's nose in and by and large f**cked things up and
continued to do so with regularity.
It's their place, their bidness. Lets pick up our toys and go home cuz wee ain't wanted
there. The indigenous didn't put up much of a fight against the Taliban but were
considerably more ... determined when it came to dissuadin 'Murka.
And wee still ain't seein the pitcher.
O.W.
jward
passin' thru
OSINTtechnical
@Osinttechnical
2m
Not good. Kunduz is now cut off to the East
View: https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1406945737636823043?s=20
FJ
@Natsecjeff
Pro-Taliban sources now claiming that Taliban has captured KhanAbad district center in Kunduz along with police and intelligence HQ. No official claim from Taliban yet. Images via pro-Taliban channels. #Afghanistan
View: https://twitter.com/Natsecjeff/status/1406943200841977856?s=20
jward
passin' thru
US could slow pullout from Afghanistan: Pentagon
Tue, Jun 22, 2021 - 6:44 AM
UPDATED Tue, Jun 22, 2021 - 6:47 AM
The US military could slow down its withdrawal from Afghanistan due to the gains made by the Taleban insurgents, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Monday.
PHOTO: AFP
[WASHINGTON] The US military could slow down its withdrawal from Afghanistan due to the gains made by the Taleban insurgents, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Monday.
Mr Kirby stressed that President Joe Biden's deadline of a full withdrawal by September remains in place, but added that the pace could be adjusted based on conditions.
"The situation in Afghanistan changes as the Taleban continue to conduct these attacks and to raid district centers as well as the violence, which is still too high," he told reporters.
"If there needs to be changes made to the pace, or to the scope and scale of the retrograde, on any given day or in any given week, we want to maintain the flexibility to do that," he said.
"We're constantly taking a look at this, every single day: what's the situation on the ground, what capabilities do we have, what additional resources do we need to move out of Afghanistan and at what pace."
SEE ALSO
Covid-19 eases but US won't join EU in opening borders
"All of these decisions are literally being made in real time," he added.
Pentagon officials said last week that the withdrawal, ordered by Mr Biden in April after nearly two decades fighting Al-Qaeda and helping government forces battle the Taleban, is around half completed.
At the time of Mr Biden's order around 2,500 US troops and 16,000 contractors, mostly US citizens, were in the country. The Pentagon has already turned over several of its key bases to government security forces, and has removed hundreds of cargo plane-loads of equipment.
Mr Kirby said US forces continue to support Afghan troops in fighting the Taleban.
"So long as we have the capability in Afghanistan, we will continue to provide assistance to Afghan forces," he said.
"But as the retrograde gets closer to completion, those capabilities will wane and will no longer be available."
Tue, Jun 22, 2021 - 6:44 AM
UPDATED Tue, Jun 22, 2021 - 6:47 AM
The US military could slow down its withdrawal from Afghanistan due to the gains made by the Taleban insurgents, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Monday.
PHOTO: AFP
[WASHINGTON] The US military could slow down its withdrawal from Afghanistan due to the gains made by the Taleban insurgents, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Monday.
Mr Kirby stressed that President Joe Biden's deadline of a full withdrawal by September remains in place, but added that the pace could be adjusted based on conditions.
"The situation in Afghanistan changes as the Taleban continue to conduct these attacks and to raid district centers as well as the violence, which is still too high," he told reporters.
"If there needs to be changes made to the pace, or to the scope and scale of the retrograde, on any given day or in any given week, we want to maintain the flexibility to do that," he said.
"We're constantly taking a look at this, every single day: what's the situation on the ground, what capabilities do we have, what additional resources do we need to move out of Afghanistan and at what pace."
SEE ALSO
Covid-19 eases but US won't join EU in opening borders
"All of these decisions are literally being made in real time," he added.
Pentagon officials said last week that the withdrawal, ordered by Mr Biden in April after nearly two decades fighting Al-Qaeda and helping government forces battle the Taleban, is around half completed.
At the time of Mr Biden's order around 2,500 US troops and 16,000 contractors, mostly US citizens, were in the country. The Pentagon has already turned over several of its key bases to government security forces, and has removed hundreds of cargo plane-loads of equipment.
Mr Kirby said US forces continue to support Afghan troops in fighting the Taleban.
"So long as we have the capability in Afghanistan, we will continue to provide assistance to Afghan forces," he said.
"But as the retrograde gets closer to completion, those capabilities will wane and will no longer be available."
jward
passin' thru
Taliban take key Afghan district, adding to string of gains
By KATHY GANNON
5-7 minutes
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban fighters took control of a key district in Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province Monday and encircled the provincial capital, police said, as the insurgent group added to its recent battlefield victories while peace talks have stalemated.
The Taliban’s gains came as the Pentagon reaffirmed the U.S. troop withdrawal was still on pace to conclude by early September.
Fighting around Imam Sahib district began late Sunday and by midday Monday the Taliban had overrun the district headquarters and were in control of police headquarters, said Inamuddin Rahmani, provincial police spokesman said.
Taliban militants were within a kilometer (.6 miles) of Kunduz, the provincial capital but had not entered into the city, he said, although there were reports of small bands of Taliban near the outskirts and residents trying to leave for Kabul.
Dozens of districts have fallen to the Taliban since May 1, when U.S. and NATO troops began their final departure from Afghanistan. Like Imam Sahib district in northern Kunduz, their significance often lies in their proximity to roads and major cities.
Imam Sahib is strategically located near Afghanistan’s northern border with Tajikistan, a key supply route from Central Asia.
Rahmani said police and Afghan National Army soldiers had jointly tried to defend the district. He said it still wasn’t clear how many casualties the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces suffered in the protracted battle or how many Taliban were killed or wounded.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed confirmed Imam Sahib district was in Taliban hands.
Several other districts in Kunduz have also fallen to the insurgent group in the latest round of fighting, including Dasht-e-Archi, which neighbors Imam Sahib, said Rahmani, further consolidating local transportation links in the area.
Syed Mohammad Mousavi drove with his family to the relative safety of Kabul from northern Mazar-e-Sharif, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Kunduz on Sunday.
He said people were trying to leave Kunduz city for Kabul fearing additional fighting. “The Taliban were all over the road, checking cars. We were very scared,” he said after reaching the capital.
In recent days, the Taliban have taken several districts across the three northern provinces of Kunduz, Baghlan and Balkh, said Mousavi. Significantly, witnesses said Doshi district in Baghlan province was in Taliban hands, which if it true gives the insurgent group control of the one road that links five northern provinces to the capital Kabul.
The Taliban have circulated videos on their website and to WhatsApp groups which they claim show government soldiers who have surrendered being told to return to their homes and receiving money from the Taliban. On Sunday, Taliban leader Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhunzada issued a statement ordering his soldiers to “treat those who surrender well and display good behavior with them.”
But the fighting has been bitter in some districts with both sides suffering casualties. A senior police official speaking on condition he not be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media said the police fighting in the districts are mostly from poor families. Those families have remained poor despite the trillions of dollars spent in Afghanistan in the past 20 years. “They have not seen changes in their lives and are indifferent so they see no difference. ... They want to save their lives just for today.”
Taliban gains and the steady withdrawal of the remaining 2,500-3,500 U.S. troops and 7,000 NATO forces have lent an urgency to efforts to find a negotiated end to Afghanistan’s protracted conflict.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby on Monday said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has regularly reviewed the U.S. withdrawal, which he said is “on pace” and will be finished by early September. “It is a dynamic situation, and we’ve said that from the very beginning,” Kirby said.
Austin is “looking at the situation every day with a fresh set of eyes to see if, you know, the pace we are setting is the appropriate pace.” Among the uncertainties, officials have said, is the State Department’s needs for embassy security and its decisions about getting interpreters and other Afghans who worked with the Americans out of the country.
Talks between the government and the Taliban taking place in Qatar have stalemated. While Taliban leaders say they are ready to negotiate, observers familiar with the talks say the insurgent movement seems more anxious to chalk up military gains hoping to strengthen their negotiating position.
Later this week, President Joe Biden will meet with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the country’s High Council for National Reconciliation, which overseas the government’s negotiation team.
Friday’s meeting in Washington, according to a White House statement, is intended to reaffirm America’s financial and humanitarian aid “to support the Afghan people, including Afghan women, girls and minorities.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Monday their conversation would also “continue to discuss how we can work together to ensure that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for terrorist groups who pose a threat to the U.S. homeland.”
___
Associated Press writers Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Bob Burns and Nancy Benac in Washington contributed to this report.
apnews.com
By KATHY GANNON
5-7 minutes
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban fighters took control of a key district in Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province Monday and encircled the provincial capital, police said, as the insurgent group added to its recent battlefield victories while peace talks have stalemated.
The Taliban’s gains came as the Pentagon reaffirmed the U.S. troop withdrawal was still on pace to conclude by early September.
Fighting around Imam Sahib district began late Sunday and by midday Monday the Taliban had overrun the district headquarters and were in control of police headquarters, said Inamuddin Rahmani, provincial police spokesman said.
Taliban militants were within a kilometer (.6 miles) of Kunduz, the provincial capital but had not entered into the city, he said, although there were reports of small bands of Taliban near the outskirts and residents trying to leave for Kabul.
Dozens of districts have fallen to the Taliban since May 1, when U.S. and NATO troops began their final departure from Afghanistan. Like Imam Sahib district in northern Kunduz, their significance often lies in their proximity to roads and major cities.
Imam Sahib is strategically located near Afghanistan’s northern border with Tajikistan, a key supply route from Central Asia.
Rahmani said police and Afghan National Army soldiers had jointly tried to defend the district. He said it still wasn’t clear how many casualties the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces suffered in the protracted battle or how many Taliban were killed or wounded.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed confirmed Imam Sahib district was in Taliban hands.
Several other districts in Kunduz have also fallen to the insurgent group in the latest round of fighting, including Dasht-e-Archi, which neighbors Imam Sahib, said Rahmani, further consolidating local transportation links in the area.
Syed Mohammad Mousavi drove with his family to the relative safety of Kabul from northern Mazar-e-Sharif, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Kunduz on Sunday.
He said people were trying to leave Kunduz city for Kabul fearing additional fighting. “The Taliban were all over the road, checking cars. We were very scared,” he said after reaching the capital.
In recent days, the Taliban have taken several districts across the three northern provinces of Kunduz, Baghlan and Balkh, said Mousavi. Significantly, witnesses said Doshi district in Baghlan province was in Taliban hands, which if it true gives the insurgent group control of the one road that links five northern provinces to the capital Kabul.
The Taliban have circulated videos on their website and to WhatsApp groups which they claim show government soldiers who have surrendered being told to return to their homes and receiving money from the Taliban. On Sunday, Taliban leader Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhunzada issued a statement ordering his soldiers to “treat those who surrender well and display good behavior with them.”
But the fighting has been bitter in some districts with both sides suffering casualties. A senior police official speaking on condition he not be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media said the police fighting in the districts are mostly from poor families. Those families have remained poor despite the trillions of dollars spent in Afghanistan in the past 20 years. “They have not seen changes in their lives and are indifferent so they see no difference. ... They want to save their lives just for today.”
Taliban gains and the steady withdrawal of the remaining 2,500-3,500 U.S. troops and 7,000 NATO forces have lent an urgency to efforts to find a negotiated end to Afghanistan’s protracted conflict.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby on Monday said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has regularly reviewed the U.S. withdrawal, which he said is “on pace” and will be finished by early September. “It is a dynamic situation, and we’ve said that from the very beginning,” Kirby said.
Austin is “looking at the situation every day with a fresh set of eyes to see if, you know, the pace we are setting is the appropriate pace.” Among the uncertainties, officials have said, is the State Department’s needs for embassy security and its decisions about getting interpreters and other Afghans who worked with the Americans out of the country.
Talks between the government and the Taliban taking place in Qatar have stalemated. While Taliban leaders say they are ready to negotiate, observers familiar with the talks say the insurgent movement seems more anxious to chalk up military gains hoping to strengthen their negotiating position.
Later this week, President Joe Biden will meet with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the country’s High Council for National Reconciliation, which overseas the government’s negotiation team.
Friday’s meeting in Washington, according to a White House statement, is intended to reaffirm America’s financial and humanitarian aid “to support the Afghan people, including Afghan women, girls and minorities.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Monday their conversation would also “continue to discuss how we can work together to ensure that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for terrorist groups who pose a threat to the U.S. homeland.”
___
Associated Press writers Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Bob Burns and Nancy Benac in Washington contributed to this report.
Taliban take key Afghan district, adding to string of gains
Local police say Taliban fighters have taken control of a key district in Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province and encircled the provincial capital.
apnews.com
jward
passin' thru
WSJ News Exclusive | Afghan Government Could Collapse Six Months After U.S. Withdrawal, New Intelligence Assessment Says
Gordon Lubold and Yaroslav Trofimov
11-14 minutes
KABUL—The U.S. intelligence community concluded last week that the government of Afghanistan could collapse as soon as six months after the American military withdrawal from the country is completed, according to officials with knowledge of the new assessment.
American intelligence agencies revised their previously more optimistic estimates as the Taliban swept through northern Afghanistan last week, seizing dozens of districts and surrounding major cities. Afghan security forces frequently surrendered without a fight, leaving their Humvees and other American-supplied equipment to the insurgents.
The new assessment of the overall U.S. intelligence community, which hasn’t been previously reported, has now aligned more closely with the analysis that had been generated by the U.S. military. The military has already withdrawn more than half of its 3,500 troops and its equipment, with the rest due to be out by Sept. 11.
On Wednesday, Taliban fighters were battling government troops inside the northern city of Kunduz after occupying the main border crossing with Tajikistan the previous day and reaching the outskirts of northern Afghanistan’s main hub, Mazar-e-Sharif. Tajikistan’s border service said 134 Afghan troops at the crossing were granted refuge while some 100 others were killed or captured by the Taliban.
Overall, the Taliban’s lightning offensive in northern Afghanistan resulted in the fall of dozens of districts over the past week, putting much of the countryside under insurgent control. Local politicians and tribal elders negotiated a series of surrender agreements with government forces. Often unpaid for months, these troops left convoys of armored vehicles and stockpiles of weaponry, including artillery pieces, mortars and heavy machine guns, in exchange for Taliban guarantees of safe passage.
Militiamen appeared with Afghan security forces in Kabul on Wednesday.
Photo: Rahmat Gul/Associated Press
U.S. intelligence experts had believed the government of President Ashraf Ghani, who is slated to meet President Biden in Washington on Friday to discuss continued American support for Afghanistan, could survive as long as two years once the U.S. withdrawal is completed. That is roughly the same interval that elapsed between the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam and the fall of Saigon in April 1975.
The latest view of intelligence analysts and senior U.S. military officials, however, is that the government of Afghanistan and its capital, Kabul, could fall between six and 12 months after American forces depart, according to officials.
Some other Western officials believe that the government’s collapse could come as soon as three months from the completion of the U.S. withdrawal. The military had planned to complete the withdrawal as soon as July, except for U.S. troops assigned to protect the American Embassy in Kabul.
The U.S. is pulling out from Afghanistan, ending the country’s longest overseas war, as a result of the February 2020 agreement that the Trump administration negotiated with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that, while Taliban attacks on Afghan forces are increasing, there has been no such rise in attacks on American troops. “Had we not begun to draw down, violence would have increased against us as well,” she said. “So the status quo, in our view, was not an option.”
Vehicles were lined up at an Afghan security checkpoint in Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan, on Wednesday.
Photo: ghulamullah habibi/EPA/Shutterstock
As part of the Doha agreements, the Taliban were also supposed to engage in peace talks with the Afghan government. These negotiations, however, have led nowhere and officials in Kabul say they don’t expect any progress until the fighting season ends in October.
The Taliban on Wednesday trumpeted their “manifest victory and triumph” this month, saying that the recent territorial advances “will be the beginning of the end of the ills birthed by occupation.” The insurgent movement promised that Afghan troops who surrender would be sent home, and those who renounce the Kabul government “should continue to live their lives in liberated areas with confidence.”
The new U.S. intelligence assessment is creating more urgency among military planners to prepare potential operations to evacuate U.S. and other personnel should security in the Afghan capital deteriorate rapidly.
Alarmed by Taliban gains, White House officials considered slowing down the pace of withdrawal, which could include keeping Bagram Air Base, north of the capital, open for now. That would have allowed the U.S. military to maintain another evacuation point for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization personnel, other foreign citizens and the tens of thousands of Afghans who supported the U.S. over the years. Mr. Biden, however, decided this week to proceed with closing down the base, U.S. officials said.
“It is a dynamic situation,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Tuesday. “If there need to be changes made to the pace or to the scope and scale of the retrograde on any given day or in any given week, we want to maintain the flexibility to do that.”
Mr. Kirby added, however, that there is no plan to go back on Mr. Biden’s pledge for American forces to leave Afghanistan by Sept. 11.
Pentagon officials declined to comment about the new intelligence assessment.
The setbacks suffered by the Afghan military in recent days prompted the prominent mujahedeen commanders who fought the Taliban before 2001, such as Atta Mohammad Noor, to call on supporters to rejoin armed militias in a national mobilization. While this mobilization is ostensibly in support of Afghan government forces, it shifts the power away from Mr. Ghani’s embattled administration and toward the warlords whose authority he long tried to curb.
Biden Announces U.S. Troop Withdrawal From Afghanistan
0:00 / 1:50
1:45
Biden Announces U.S. Troop Withdrawal From Afghanistan
President Biden said he will withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, marking the second time in less than two years that an American president has set a date to end involvement in the Afghan conflict -- the longest war in U.S. history. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images (Video from 4/14/21)
In Mazar-e-Sharif, convoys of these anti-Taliban militias roamed the streets Wednesday as civilians mostly stayed at home. “I don’t see many ordinary vehicles. It looks like a city at war now,” said shopkeeper Sami Faizy.
Mohammed Amin Darasoofi, a member of the provincial council, said that the return to Mazar-e-Sharif of commanders such as Gen. Atta, a Tajik, and Mohammed Mohaqiq, a Hazara warlord, has rekindled the morale of government soldiers.
“In the past week, the morale of security forces was low,” he said. “But now the mujahedeen and the people revolted. The Taliban cannot defeat the mujahedeen.”
In Kunduz, which fell to the Taliban twice in recent years, just to be recaptured by the Afghan government with U.S. support, the insurgents were closing in on the city center as of Wednesday night.
As Ghulam Rabbani Rabbani, head of the provincial council, spoke by phone from the city, gunfire interrupted the conversation. “There are many government forces, but there are many Taliban too,” he said. “The Taliban have the plan to take the city. Those who have the resources are fleeing it.”
Militiamen joined a gathering in Kabul on Wednesday to declare their support for Afghan security forces in fighting the Taliban.
Photo: Reuters
In a briefing to the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, the U.N.’s special representative for Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, pointed out that “most districts that have been taken surround provincial capitals, suggesting that the Taliban are positioning themselves to try and take these capitals once foreign forces are fully withdrawn.”
“It should be emphatically clear that any efforts to install a militarily imposed government in Kabul would go against the will of the Afghan people and against the stated positions of the regional countries and the broader international community,” she added.
Thousands of Americans, including military personnel, contractors and diplomatic personnel, still remain in Afghanistan. There are also tens of thousands of Afghans who over the years have assisted American military and diplomatic efforts.
Top military officials and Republican and Democratic lawmakers support an evacuation of those individuals, all of whom could be targeted by the Taliban. Although planning has been done, the Biden administration has yet to issue the green light to conduct such an operation. That has frustrated some supporters of Mr. Biden, who say that the White House is hoping for the best and failing to plan for the worst.
U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton (D., Mass.), a former Marine infantryman, plans to unveil on Thursday a detailed plan for evacuating as many as 20,000 Afghan interpreters and others who he said deserve special immigrant visas.
“Hope is not a plan, and the administration is putting a lot of weight into hope right now,” he said. “One of the things about Afghanistan is it’s clear by now that we’re not going to win the war, but there are still devastating ways we could lose.”
—Ehsanullah Amiri in Kabul and Sabrina Siddiqui in Washington contributed to this article.
The U.S. in Afghanistan
Read more articles about America’s longest war, selected by the editors
Write to Gordon Lubold at Gordon.Lubold@wsj.com and Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com
Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
[/URL]
Gordon Lubold and Yaroslav Trofimov
11-14 minutes
KABUL—The U.S. intelligence community concluded last week that the government of Afghanistan could collapse as soon as six months after the American military withdrawal from the country is completed, according to officials with knowledge of the new assessment.
American intelligence agencies revised their previously more optimistic estimates as the Taliban swept through northern Afghanistan last week, seizing dozens of districts and surrounding major cities. Afghan security forces frequently surrendered without a fight, leaving their Humvees and other American-supplied equipment to the insurgents.
The new assessment of the overall U.S. intelligence community, which hasn’t been previously reported, has now aligned more closely with the analysis that had been generated by the U.S. military. The military has already withdrawn more than half of its 3,500 troops and its equipment, with the rest due to be out by Sept. 11.
On Wednesday, Taliban fighters were battling government troops inside the northern city of Kunduz after occupying the main border crossing with Tajikistan the previous day and reaching the outskirts of northern Afghanistan’s main hub, Mazar-e-Sharif. Tajikistan’s border service said 134 Afghan troops at the crossing were granted refuge while some 100 others were killed or captured by the Taliban.
Overall, the Taliban’s lightning offensive in northern Afghanistan resulted in the fall of dozens of districts over the past week, putting much of the countryside under insurgent control. Local politicians and tribal elders negotiated a series of surrender agreements with government forces. Often unpaid for months, these troops left convoys of armored vehicles and stockpiles of weaponry, including artillery pieces, mortars and heavy machine guns, in exchange for Taliban guarantees of safe passage.
Militiamen appeared with Afghan security forces in Kabul on Wednesday.
Photo: Rahmat Gul/Associated Press
U.S. intelligence experts had believed the government of President Ashraf Ghani, who is slated to meet President Biden in Washington on Friday to discuss continued American support for Afghanistan, could survive as long as two years once the U.S. withdrawal is completed. That is roughly the same interval that elapsed between the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam and the fall of Saigon in April 1975.
The latest view of intelligence analysts and senior U.S. military officials, however, is that the government of Afghanistan and its capital, Kabul, could fall between six and 12 months after American forces depart, according to officials.
Some other Western officials believe that the government’s collapse could come as soon as three months from the completion of the U.S. withdrawal. The military had planned to complete the withdrawal as soon as July, except for U.S. troops assigned to protect the American Embassy in Kabul.
The U.S. is pulling out from Afghanistan, ending the country’s longest overseas war, as a result of the February 2020 agreement that the Trump administration negotiated with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that, while Taliban attacks on Afghan forces are increasing, there has been no such rise in attacks on American troops. “Had we not begun to draw down, violence would have increased against us as well,” she said. “So the status quo, in our view, was not an option.”
Vehicles were lined up at an Afghan security checkpoint in Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan, on Wednesday.
Photo: ghulamullah habibi/EPA/Shutterstock
As part of the Doha agreements, the Taliban were also supposed to engage in peace talks with the Afghan government. These negotiations, however, have led nowhere and officials in Kabul say they don’t expect any progress until the fighting season ends in October.
The Taliban on Wednesday trumpeted their “manifest victory and triumph” this month, saying that the recent territorial advances “will be the beginning of the end of the ills birthed by occupation.” The insurgent movement promised that Afghan troops who surrender would be sent home, and those who renounce the Kabul government “should continue to live their lives in liberated areas with confidence.”
The new U.S. intelligence assessment is creating more urgency among military planners to prepare potential operations to evacuate U.S. and other personnel should security in the Afghan capital deteriorate rapidly.
Alarmed by Taliban gains, White House officials considered slowing down the pace of withdrawal, which could include keeping Bagram Air Base, north of the capital, open for now. That would have allowed the U.S. military to maintain another evacuation point for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization personnel, other foreign citizens and the tens of thousands of Afghans who supported the U.S. over the years. Mr. Biden, however, decided this week to proceed with closing down the base, U.S. officials said.
“It is a dynamic situation,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Tuesday. “If there need to be changes made to the pace or to the scope and scale of the retrograde on any given day or in any given week, we want to maintain the flexibility to do that.”
Mr. Kirby added, however, that there is no plan to go back on Mr. Biden’s pledge for American forces to leave Afghanistan by Sept. 11.
Pentagon officials declined to comment about the new intelligence assessment.
The setbacks suffered by the Afghan military in recent days prompted the prominent mujahedeen commanders who fought the Taliban before 2001, such as Atta Mohammad Noor, to call on supporters to rejoin armed militias in a national mobilization. While this mobilization is ostensibly in support of Afghan government forces, it shifts the power away from Mr. Ghani’s embattled administration and toward the warlords whose authority he long tried to curb.
Biden Announces U.S. Troop Withdrawal From Afghanistan
0:00 / 1:50
1:45
Biden Announces U.S. Troop Withdrawal From Afghanistan
President Biden said he will withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, marking the second time in less than two years that an American president has set a date to end involvement in the Afghan conflict -- the longest war in U.S. history. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images (Video from 4/14/21)
In Mazar-e-Sharif, convoys of these anti-Taliban militias roamed the streets Wednesday as civilians mostly stayed at home. “I don’t see many ordinary vehicles. It looks like a city at war now,” said shopkeeper Sami Faizy.
Mohammed Amin Darasoofi, a member of the provincial council, said that the return to Mazar-e-Sharif of commanders such as Gen. Atta, a Tajik, and Mohammed Mohaqiq, a Hazara warlord, has rekindled the morale of government soldiers.
“In the past week, the morale of security forces was low,” he said. “But now the mujahedeen and the people revolted. The Taliban cannot defeat the mujahedeen.”
In Kunduz, which fell to the Taliban twice in recent years, just to be recaptured by the Afghan government with U.S. support, the insurgents were closing in on the city center as of Wednesday night.
As Ghulam Rabbani Rabbani, head of the provincial council, spoke by phone from the city, gunfire interrupted the conversation. “There are many government forces, but there are many Taliban too,” he said. “The Taliban have the plan to take the city. Those who have the resources are fleeing it.”
Militiamen joined a gathering in Kabul on Wednesday to declare their support for Afghan security forces in fighting the Taliban.
Photo: Reuters
In a briefing to the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, the U.N.’s special representative for Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, pointed out that “most districts that have been taken surround provincial capitals, suggesting that the Taliban are positioning themselves to try and take these capitals once foreign forces are fully withdrawn.”
“It should be emphatically clear that any efforts to install a militarily imposed government in Kabul would go against the will of the Afghan people and against the stated positions of the regional countries and the broader international community,” she added.
Thousands of Americans, including military personnel, contractors and diplomatic personnel, still remain in Afghanistan. There are also tens of thousands of Afghans who over the years have assisted American military and diplomatic efforts.
Top military officials and Republican and Democratic lawmakers support an evacuation of those individuals, all of whom could be targeted by the Taliban. Although planning has been done, the Biden administration has yet to issue the green light to conduct such an operation. That has frustrated some supporters of Mr. Biden, who say that the White House is hoping for the best and failing to plan for the worst.
U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton (D., Mass.), a former Marine infantryman, plans to unveil on Thursday a detailed plan for evacuating as many as 20,000 Afghan interpreters and others who he said deserve special immigrant visas.
“Hope is not a plan, and the administration is putting a lot of weight into hope right now,” he said. “One of the things about Afghanistan is it’s clear by now that we’re not going to win the war, but there are still devastating ways we could lose.”
—Ehsanullah Amiri in Kabul and Sabrina Siddiqui in Washington contributed to this article.
The U.S. in Afghanistan
Read more articles about America’s longest war, selected by the editors
Write to Gordon Lubold at Gordon.Lubold@wsj.com and Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com
Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
[/URL]
jward
passin' thru
In Afghanistan, a summer of pain awaits
David Ignatius
5-6 minutes
As U.S. troops head toward the exit in Afghanistan, the menu of policy options to prevent another ruinous civil war is depressingly meager. And vignettes from across the country offer a glimpse of the torment ahead.
In northern Afghanistan, residents of shelters for battered or homeless women are fleeing in advance of the fighting between the Taliban and the government, says Annie Pforzheimer, a retired U.S. diplomat who served two tours in Kabul and is now a director of a group called Women for Afghan Women. She won’t discuss where the women are heading, for fear it could endanger them.
In Kabul, young Afghan journalists remain “stoic and courageous” as they cover the mayhem, says Saad Mohseni, whose Moby Group runs Tolo TV, the largest media operation in Afghanistan. “My journalists have the pain of the country written in their faces,” he writes in a text.
In the Afghan military, “the mood toward the U.S. is souring by the hour,” as they watch the rapid retreat of American troops and contractors, says David Sedney, who spent much of the past two decades as a Pentagon official dealing with Afghanistan. “As the full implications of the U.S. abandonment sink in, dynamics are in motion that could lead in many directions, almost all of them bad.”
President Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops after two decades of war is understandable, however dispiriting it is to these Afghans. What’s harder for the Afghans to fathom is why Biden pulled the plug so quickly, with so little apparent planning for what’s next. Leaving the modest remaining force of 2,500 U.S. troops there a while longer would have been a low-cost way of sustaining the shaky status quo.
Instead, we have “rapid disintegration,” according to Frederick W. Kagan, a former West Point military history professor who has advised three U.S. commanders in Kabul. The Taliban, intoxicated with imminent victory, are advancing toward major provincial capitals. The Afghan army is buckling in many areas. And in the vacuum, ethnic militias and criminal gangs are becoming the only security for a terrified population.
Biden has a last chance to salvage some of this wreckage when President Ashraf Ghani visits Washington on Friday. He can’t offer Ghani U.S. military muscle — it’s too late for that. But he can pledge financial and diplomatic support that, perhaps, could allow Ghani’s government to avert total collapse. And he can mobilize the international consensus — which includes Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran — against a Taliban military takeover in Kabul.
Biden had hoped for an intra-Afghan peace agreement before U.S. troops departed. He won’t get that, largely because the triumphal Taliban have dragged their feet. Resolution of the conflict — on the battlefield or in negotiations — won’t come until after U.S. troops have left. The Taliban appear startled by the speed of their advance; they have begun privately messaging Americans about the mundane realities of governing, such as operating dams or maintaining a power grid, U.S. officials say.
“I don’t think the president understood how precarious the situation would become” as soon as he announced on April 14 that he planned to withdraw all troops by Sept. 11, says Kagan. Biden’s pledge to remove U.S. military forces came as the Afghan fighting season was beginning. Rampaging Taliban rebels seized about 50 district capitals after May 1. But they’ve held back from capturing big provincial capitals such as Kandahar or Jalalabad, perhaps because they fear U.S. reprisals or maybe just because their forces are stretched.
Although Pentagon civilian and military leaders widely opposed Biden’s decision, they have moved to implement it quickly and decisively. They don’t want scenes of last-minute chaos, with Taliban flags atop captured U.S. Army vehicles or American helicopters lifting desperate stragglers from rooftops.
Every week, U.S. Central Command sends out a news release, as reliable as the Grim Reaper, counting the drawdown. As of Tuesday, the Pentagon had removed the equivalent of 763 C-17 loads of materiel and disposed of 14,790 pieces of equipment.
The Taliban is like the proverbial dog that caught the car. It has achieved its dream of forcing American withdrawal, but now what? Afghanistan is a much more urban and modern nation than when the Taliban were driven from power 20 years ago. Kabul and other major cities may not fall easily; even if the army crumbles, militias will keep fighting.
Americans grew tired of this war, but they won’t like scenes of our departure, either. What Biden owes Afghanistan and America both is a frank explanation of what he’s doing — and how he plans to keep faith with the Afghan people to provide as honorable a retreat as possible. But for Afghanistan, and perhaps Biden, too, this will be a summer of pain.
David Ignatius
5-6 minutes
As U.S. troops head toward the exit in Afghanistan, the menu of policy options to prevent another ruinous civil war is depressingly meager. And vignettes from across the country offer a glimpse of the torment ahead.
In northern Afghanistan, residents of shelters for battered or homeless women are fleeing in advance of the fighting between the Taliban and the government, says Annie Pforzheimer, a retired U.S. diplomat who served two tours in Kabul and is now a director of a group called Women for Afghan Women. She won’t discuss where the women are heading, for fear it could endanger them.
In Kabul, young Afghan journalists remain “stoic and courageous” as they cover the mayhem, says Saad Mohseni, whose Moby Group runs Tolo TV, the largest media operation in Afghanistan. “My journalists have the pain of the country written in their faces,” he writes in a text.
In the Afghan military, “the mood toward the U.S. is souring by the hour,” as they watch the rapid retreat of American troops and contractors, says David Sedney, who spent much of the past two decades as a Pentagon official dealing with Afghanistan. “As the full implications of the U.S. abandonment sink in, dynamics are in motion that could lead in many directions, almost all of them bad.”
President Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops after two decades of war is understandable, however dispiriting it is to these Afghans. What’s harder for the Afghans to fathom is why Biden pulled the plug so quickly, with so little apparent planning for what’s next. Leaving the modest remaining force of 2,500 U.S. troops there a while longer would have been a low-cost way of sustaining the shaky status quo.
Instead, we have “rapid disintegration,” according to Frederick W. Kagan, a former West Point military history professor who has advised three U.S. commanders in Kabul. The Taliban, intoxicated with imminent victory, are advancing toward major provincial capitals. The Afghan army is buckling in many areas. And in the vacuum, ethnic militias and criminal gangs are becoming the only security for a terrified population.
Biden has a last chance to salvage some of this wreckage when President Ashraf Ghani visits Washington on Friday. He can’t offer Ghani U.S. military muscle — it’s too late for that. But he can pledge financial and diplomatic support that, perhaps, could allow Ghani’s government to avert total collapse. And he can mobilize the international consensus — which includes Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran — against a Taliban military takeover in Kabul.
Biden had hoped for an intra-Afghan peace agreement before U.S. troops departed. He won’t get that, largely because the triumphal Taliban have dragged their feet. Resolution of the conflict — on the battlefield or in negotiations — won’t come until after U.S. troops have left. The Taliban appear startled by the speed of their advance; they have begun privately messaging Americans about the mundane realities of governing, such as operating dams or maintaining a power grid, U.S. officials say.
“I don’t think the president understood how precarious the situation would become” as soon as he announced on April 14 that he planned to withdraw all troops by Sept. 11, says Kagan. Biden’s pledge to remove U.S. military forces came as the Afghan fighting season was beginning. Rampaging Taliban rebels seized about 50 district capitals after May 1. But they’ve held back from capturing big provincial capitals such as Kandahar or Jalalabad, perhaps because they fear U.S. reprisals or maybe just because their forces are stretched.
Although Pentagon civilian and military leaders widely opposed Biden’s decision, they have moved to implement it quickly and decisively. They don’t want scenes of last-minute chaos, with Taliban flags atop captured U.S. Army vehicles or American helicopters lifting desperate stragglers from rooftops.
Every week, U.S. Central Command sends out a news release, as reliable as the Grim Reaper, counting the drawdown. As of Tuesday, the Pentagon had removed the equivalent of 763 C-17 loads of materiel and disposed of 14,790 pieces of equipment.
The Taliban is like the proverbial dog that caught the car. It has achieved its dream of forcing American withdrawal, but now what? Afghanistan is a much more urban and modern nation than when the Taliban were driven from power 20 years ago. Kabul and other major cities may not fall easily; even if the army crumbles, militias will keep fighting.
Americans grew tired of this war, but they won’t like scenes of our departure, either. What Biden owes Afghanistan and America both is a frank explanation of what he’s doing — and how he plans to keep faith with the Afghan people to provide as honorable a retreat as possible. But for Afghanistan, and perhaps Biden, too, this will be a summer of pain.
jward
passin' thru
Lucas Tomlinson
@LucasFoxNews
U.S. military's top officer tells House panel Taliban now control 81 out of 419 district centers in Afghanistan, but 61 were seized last year. Gen. Milley says Taliban 'sniping,' have taken 20 districts in last two months, but so far no provincial capitals.
10:20 AM · Jun 23, 2021·Twitter Web App
Boris Ryvkin
@BRyvkin
Jun 23
Afghan regular army is melting away. Taliban seized an important border crossing without firing a shot. This echoes the collapse of the South Vietnamese in the final offensive to take Saigon in 1975. Twenty years, thousands of casualties & north of $1 trillion spent. For what?
@LucasFoxNews
U.S. military's top officer tells House panel Taliban now control 81 out of 419 district centers in Afghanistan, but 61 were seized last year. Gen. Milley says Taliban 'sniping,' have taken 20 districts in last two months, but so far no provincial capitals.
10:20 AM · Jun 23, 2021·Twitter Web App
Boris Ryvkin
@BRyvkin
Jun 23
Afghan regular army is melting away. Taliban seized an important border crossing without firing a shot. This echoes the collapse of the South Vietnamese in the final offensive to take Saigon in 1975. Twenty years, thousands of casualties & north of $1 trillion spent. For what?
jward
passin' thru
White House preparing to relocate Afghans who helped US troops
by
Aamer Madihani
• Associated Press • June 24, 2021
In this Friday, April 30, 2021, file photo former Afghan interpreters hold banners during a protest against the U.S. government and NATO in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Mariam Zuhaib/AP)
The Biden administration is stepping up preparation to begin relocating tens of thousands of Afghan interpreters and others who worked with U.S. forces during the war to other countries as their applications for U.S. entry are processed, a senior administration official said Thursday.
The official said planning has accelerated in recent days to relocate Afghans — and their families — who assisted Americans during the nearly 20-year-old war to other countries or U.S. territories as their applications are sorted out. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the yet to be publicly announced plans.
The White House on Wednesday began to brief lawmakers on the outlines of their plans, the official said.
With U.S. and NATO forces facing a Sept. 11 deadline to leave Afghanistan, the Biden administration has faced i ncreased pressure from lawmakers, veterans and others to evacuate thousands of Afghans who worked as interpreters or who otherwise helped U.S. military operations there in the past two decades.
“We have a moral obligation to protect our brave allies who put their lives on the line for us, and we’ve been working for months to engage the administration and make sure there’s a plan, with few concrete results,” Republican Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan said during a House hearing last week.
Despite unusual bipartisan support in Congress, the administration hasn’t publicly gone on record in support of an evacuation as it unwinds a war that started after the 9/11 attacks.
“We’re doing the kind of extensive planning for potential evacuation, should that become necessary,”“ White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters earlier this week.
The move to accelerate plans to relocate Afghans who helped the U.S. effort comes as Biden is set to meet on Friday with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation.
The stepped-up relocation effort was first reported by The New York Times.
www.stripes.com
by
Aamer Madihani
• Associated Press • June 24, 2021
In this Friday, April 30, 2021, file photo former Afghan interpreters hold banners during a protest against the U.S. government and NATO in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Mariam Zuhaib/AP)
The Biden administration is stepping up preparation to begin relocating tens of thousands of Afghan interpreters and others who worked with U.S. forces during the war to other countries as their applications for U.S. entry are processed, a senior administration official said Thursday.
The official said planning has accelerated in recent days to relocate Afghans — and their families — who assisted Americans during the nearly 20-year-old war to other countries or U.S. territories as their applications are sorted out. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the yet to be publicly announced plans.
The White House on Wednesday began to brief lawmakers on the outlines of their plans, the official said.
With U.S. and NATO forces facing a Sept. 11 deadline to leave Afghanistan, the Biden administration has faced i ncreased pressure from lawmakers, veterans and others to evacuate thousands of Afghans who worked as interpreters or who otherwise helped U.S. military operations there in the past two decades.
“We have a moral obligation to protect our brave allies who put their lives on the line for us, and we’ve been working for months to engage the administration and make sure there’s a plan, with few concrete results,” Republican Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan said during a House hearing last week.
Despite unusual bipartisan support in Congress, the administration hasn’t publicly gone on record in support of an evacuation as it unwinds a war that started after the 9/11 attacks.
“We’re doing the kind of extensive planning for potential evacuation, should that become necessary,”“ White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters earlier this week.
The move to accelerate plans to relocate Afghans who helped the U.S. effort comes as Biden is set to meet on Friday with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation.
The stepped-up relocation effort was first reported by The New York Times.
White House preparing to relocate Afghans who helped US troops
A senior White House official said planning has accelerated in recent days to relocate Afghans — and their families — who assisted Americans during the nearly 20-year-old war to other countries or U.S. territories as their applications are sorted out.
Posted for fair use.....
vitalinterests.thedispatch.com
VITAL INTERESTS
The Situation in Afghanistan Is Much Worse Than You Realize
The U.S. military is downplaying the Taliban’s gains, and the U.S. and U.N. are pretending there is a viable peace process.
Just two weeks after President Biden announced on April 14 his decision to withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan by September 11, the Taliban launched a massive offensive. Since May 1, the jihadists have captured a large swath of the country, laying the groundwork for the resurrection of their Islamic emirate. America and its allies have remained mostly indifferent—retreating from the battlefield as the jihadists advance.
This is what a lost war looks like.
Here are four takeaways from recent events.
The U.S. military is downplaying the Taliban’s gains.
While testifying before the House Armed Services Committee this week, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley tried to downplay the Taliban’s gains. “There's 81 district centers that are currently, we think, are underneath Taliban control. That's out of 419 district centers,” Milley claimed. “There's no provincial capital that is underneath Taliban control, and there’s 34 of those.”
Milley went on to argue that “60 percent of the 81 [district centers] were seized last year, and the others since the last two months or so.” He then went on to say that while the U.S. is “concerned,” there are enough Afghan forces “to defend their country.”
There are several problems with Milley’s figures. First, he claimed that 31 or 32 districts fell to the Taliban in the past “two months or so,” but that’s a very low estimate. That was an accurate figure in mid-June, but was no longer the right figure when Milley testified on June 23, as the Taliban continued its offensive.
The U.N. reported on June 22 that more than 50 districts have come under Taliban control since the beginning of May—and that was before the Taliban won even more ground in the past 72 hours. My colleague Bill Roggio, who follows this more closely than anyone, thinks that the Taliban has actually conquered 60 to 70 or more districts since May 1. Roggio’s figures are buttressed by reporting from the Afghan media, which has documented far more districts falling than Milley let on. To give you some perspective on the importance of the Taliban’s gains, Roggio likens an Afghan district to an American county in terms of land mass.
Second, Roggio estimates that the Taliban now controls more than 140 districts—60 or so more than Milley claimed before Congress. It is often difficult to discern when the jihadists have full control of a district. Even so, the majority of Afghanistan’s districts are, at a minimum, outside of Kabul’s control. Roggio also estimates that more than 170 districts are contested. That is in addition to the 140 or so he thinks are controlled by the Taliban, meaning three-quarters of the country is now outside of Kabul’s control. Milley did not inform Congress of this dire situation.
Third, while it is true that no provincial capitals have yet fallen to the Taliban, it is only a matter of time. The Taliban’s fighters have encircled multiple provincial capitals, deliberately waiting for U.S. and NATO forces to fully withdraw from the country before seizing at least some of them. To give just two examples from recent days, Taliban fighters have made incursions into Kunduz and are on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif, two of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals. Many more provincial capitals are surrounded.
The truth is that the U.S. military has attempted to downplay the Taliban’s battlefield gains for years. This is part of the American failure. In October 2018, the U.S. military stopped relying on estimates of the number of Taliban controlled and contested districts, arguing that such figures are “of limited decision-making value” to leaders and all that mattered was progress toward a “political settlement.” In reality, the U.S. military didn’t want to admit that the Taliban was slowly gaining ground at the time. And now the jihadists are taking territory at a rapid pace.
Much of the offensive is taking place in the north, far from the Taliban’s traditional strongholds, but in locations where al-Qaeda-affiliated groups are known to operate.
The Taliban’s home turf is in southern and eastern Afghanistan. But over time, the group has become stronger elsewhere throughout the country. This is due, in no small part, to al-Qaeda’s efforts.
Many of the districts that have fallen to the jihadis in recent weeks are located in Afghan provinces such as Balkh, Kunduz, Takhar and Badakhshan. These northern provinces border the Central Asian countries of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The Taliban’s fighters even seized the border crossing with Tajikistan, forcing 134 Afghan soldiers to flee into the neighboring country.
Naturally, the Taliban’s ranks in these areas include jihadists from the Central Asian states. In fact, al-Qaeda has groomed Central Asian fighters since the 1990s and it is likely that those efforts are now bearing fruit. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) was one of the first Central Asian jihadist groups to work closely with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It splintered several years ago, after its leadership defected to the Islamic State (ISIS), thereby provoking a crackdown by the Taliban. But other al-Qaeda-linked organizations that split off from the IMU, such as the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) and Ansarullah (which is comprised mainly of Tajiks), continue to fight on. In addition, the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), a predominately Uighur organization, is also known to train and fight in northern Afghanistan.
These al-Qaeda-affiliated outfits fight under the Taliban’s banner, so they advertise their role in the war only on occasion. Still, there is ample evidence pointing to their participation in the Taliban’s jihad. Their presence in the Taliban’s campaign became obvious after President Obama withdrew the vast majority of U.S. forces by the end of 2014. Months later, in the spring of 2015, the Taliban opened a major offensive across the north. That campaign was a harbinger of the current offensive and the role of the aforementioned al-Qaeda-affiliated Central Asian groups was well-documented at the time. It’s a safe bet they are still on the frontlines today.
One of the many analytic failures of the Afghan War involves these very same Central Asian jihadist groups. It’s well-known that they are part of al-Qaeda’s network and that they fight for the Taliban, but the U.S. and its allies never developed a working model to explain how they fit into al-Qaeda’s overall organization scheme. So, as U.S. officials repeatedly downplayed al-Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan, they ignored that these Central Asian groups were growing and didn’t factor them into the assessments of al-Qaeda’s total strength. This was true even though, for example, Uzbeks are known to be part of al-Qaeda’s international facilitation network and the leader of the TIP was drawing a salary from Osama bin Laden’s personnel budget.
Incredibly, American officials still can’t really explain how these Central Asian jihadists fit into al-Qaeda’s organization.
The Taliban’s deputy emir, Sirajuddin Haqqani, has issued orders regarding captured spoils and governance under the Islamic emirate.
The Taliban is preparing its men to rule. On June 24, the Taliban’s deputy emir, Sirajuddin Haqqani, released the latest in a series of instructions to his men. His message was posted on the Taliban’s prolific Voice of Jihad website. Haqqani is one of al-Qaeda’s closest allies and it is significant that, in this hour especially, he speaks for the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate.
Haqqani, a U.S.- and U.N.-designated terrorist, trumpeted his organization’s “continuous series of conquests,” instructing the Taliban’s “district and provincial governors” to “pay attention” to the orders coming down the chain of command. The Taliban leader told his fighters that they shouldn’t be “cruel” or “arrogant” in their moment of triumph. “Good governance is the need of the hour and must be taken into account by our colleagues. To compensate even a small mistake is a tall order.”
Haqqani does not speak like the internationally wanted terrorist that he is. Instead, he speaks authoritatively—like the head of a nation—the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. This is yet another indication of the American failure.
U.S. and U.N. officials are still pretending there is a “peace process” and there is a possibility that the Taliban may be willing to agree to a political settlement with Kabul.
The Taliban isn’t interested in peace. At all. The Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies went on the offensive immediately after the U.S. signed a withdrawal agreement with the group on Feb. 29, 2020. The jihadists have launched multiple offensives since then, including the most recent one. Yet, U.S. and U.N. officials continue to pretend that there is some sort of “peace process.” This is delusional.
"We are looking very carefully at the security on the ground in Afghanistan and we're also looking very hard at whether the Taliban is, at all, serious about a peaceful resolution of the conflict," Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told reporters on Friday.
“There is only one acceptable direction for Afghanistan—one acceptable direction—away from the battlefield and back to the negotiating table,” said Deborah Lyons, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan, on June 22.
But one doesn’t need to look “very hard” to discern the Taliban’s intentions. The jihadists are willing to extract more concessions at the negotiating table, without giving anything up. But they very much plan to win on the battlefield—and in recent weeks, they’ve done just that.
The Afghan government is scrambling to hold on. A delegation led by President Ashraf Ghani visited Washington this week as part of a last-ditch effort to convince President Biden that a full withdrawal of American forces will lead to further jihadist victories. It is unlikely that President Biden will be swayed. Like his predecessor, Biden decries America’s “endless wars” and is largely unconcerned by the terrorists’ endless jihad.
3 replies
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75 more comments…
The Situation in Afghanistan Is Much Worse Than You Realize
The U.S. military is downplaying the Taliban’s gains, and the U.S. and U.N. are pretending there is a viable peace process.
vitalinterests.thedispatch.com
VITAL INTERESTS
The Situation in Afghanistan Is Much Worse Than You Realize
The U.S. military is downplaying the Taliban’s gains, and the U.S. and U.N. are pretending there is a viable peace process.
Just two weeks after President Biden announced on April 14 his decision to withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan by September 11, the Taliban launched a massive offensive. Since May 1, the jihadists have captured a large swath of the country, laying the groundwork for the resurrection of their Islamic emirate. America and its allies have remained mostly indifferent—retreating from the battlefield as the jihadists advance.
This is what a lost war looks like.
Here are four takeaways from recent events.
The U.S. military is downplaying the Taliban’s gains.
While testifying before the House Armed Services Committee this week, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley tried to downplay the Taliban’s gains. “There's 81 district centers that are currently, we think, are underneath Taliban control. That's out of 419 district centers,” Milley claimed. “There's no provincial capital that is underneath Taliban control, and there’s 34 of those.”
Milley went on to argue that “60 percent of the 81 [district centers] were seized last year, and the others since the last two months or so.” He then went on to say that while the U.S. is “concerned,” there are enough Afghan forces “to defend their country.”
There are several problems with Milley’s figures. First, he claimed that 31 or 32 districts fell to the Taliban in the past “two months or so,” but that’s a very low estimate. That was an accurate figure in mid-June, but was no longer the right figure when Milley testified on June 23, as the Taliban continued its offensive.
The U.N. reported on June 22 that more than 50 districts have come under Taliban control since the beginning of May—and that was before the Taliban won even more ground in the past 72 hours. My colleague Bill Roggio, who follows this more closely than anyone, thinks that the Taliban has actually conquered 60 to 70 or more districts since May 1. Roggio’s figures are buttressed by reporting from the Afghan media, which has documented far more districts falling than Milley let on. To give you some perspective on the importance of the Taliban’s gains, Roggio likens an Afghan district to an American county in terms of land mass.
Second, Roggio estimates that the Taliban now controls more than 140 districts—60 or so more than Milley claimed before Congress. It is often difficult to discern when the jihadists have full control of a district. Even so, the majority of Afghanistan’s districts are, at a minimum, outside of Kabul’s control. Roggio also estimates that more than 170 districts are contested. That is in addition to the 140 or so he thinks are controlled by the Taliban, meaning three-quarters of the country is now outside of Kabul’s control. Milley did not inform Congress of this dire situation.
Third, while it is true that no provincial capitals have yet fallen to the Taliban, it is only a matter of time. The Taliban’s fighters have encircled multiple provincial capitals, deliberately waiting for U.S. and NATO forces to fully withdraw from the country before seizing at least some of them. To give just two examples from recent days, Taliban fighters have made incursions into Kunduz and are on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif, two of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals. Many more provincial capitals are surrounded.
The truth is that the U.S. military has attempted to downplay the Taliban’s battlefield gains for years. This is part of the American failure. In October 2018, the U.S. military stopped relying on estimates of the number of Taliban controlled and contested districts, arguing that such figures are “of limited decision-making value” to leaders and all that mattered was progress toward a “political settlement.” In reality, the U.S. military didn’t want to admit that the Taliban was slowly gaining ground at the time. And now the jihadists are taking territory at a rapid pace.
Much of the offensive is taking place in the north, far from the Taliban’s traditional strongholds, but in locations where al-Qaeda-affiliated groups are known to operate.
The Taliban’s home turf is in southern and eastern Afghanistan. But over time, the group has become stronger elsewhere throughout the country. This is due, in no small part, to al-Qaeda’s efforts.
Many of the districts that have fallen to the jihadis in recent weeks are located in Afghan provinces such as Balkh, Kunduz, Takhar and Badakhshan. These northern provinces border the Central Asian countries of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The Taliban’s fighters even seized the border crossing with Tajikistan, forcing 134 Afghan soldiers to flee into the neighboring country.
Naturally, the Taliban’s ranks in these areas include jihadists from the Central Asian states. In fact, al-Qaeda has groomed Central Asian fighters since the 1990s and it is likely that those efforts are now bearing fruit. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) was one of the first Central Asian jihadist groups to work closely with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It splintered several years ago, after its leadership defected to the Islamic State (ISIS), thereby provoking a crackdown by the Taliban. But other al-Qaeda-linked organizations that split off from the IMU, such as the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) and Ansarullah (which is comprised mainly of Tajiks), continue to fight on. In addition, the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), a predominately Uighur organization, is also known to train and fight in northern Afghanistan.
These al-Qaeda-affiliated outfits fight under the Taliban’s banner, so they advertise their role in the war only on occasion. Still, there is ample evidence pointing to their participation in the Taliban’s jihad. Their presence in the Taliban’s campaign became obvious after President Obama withdrew the vast majority of U.S. forces by the end of 2014. Months later, in the spring of 2015, the Taliban opened a major offensive across the north. That campaign was a harbinger of the current offensive and the role of the aforementioned al-Qaeda-affiliated Central Asian groups was well-documented at the time. It’s a safe bet they are still on the frontlines today.
One of the many analytic failures of the Afghan War involves these very same Central Asian jihadist groups. It’s well-known that they are part of al-Qaeda’s network and that they fight for the Taliban, but the U.S. and its allies never developed a working model to explain how they fit into al-Qaeda’s overall organization scheme. So, as U.S. officials repeatedly downplayed al-Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan, they ignored that these Central Asian groups were growing and didn’t factor them into the assessments of al-Qaeda’s total strength. This was true even though, for example, Uzbeks are known to be part of al-Qaeda’s international facilitation network and the leader of the TIP was drawing a salary from Osama bin Laden’s personnel budget.
Incredibly, American officials still can’t really explain how these Central Asian jihadists fit into al-Qaeda’s organization.
The Taliban’s deputy emir, Sirajuddin Haqqani, has issued orders regarding captured spoils and governance under the Islamic emirate.
The Taliban is preparing its men to rule. On June 24, the Taliban’s deputy emir, Sirajuddin Haqqani, released the latest in a series of instructions to his men. His message was posted on the Taliban’s prolific Voice of Jihad website. Haqqani is one of al-Qaeda’s closest allies and it is significant that, in this hour especially, he speaks for the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate.
Haqqani, a U.S.- and U.N.-designated terrorist, trumpeted his organization’s “continuous series of conquests,” instructing the Taliban’s “district and provincial governors” to “pay attention” to the orders coming down the chain of command. The Taliban leader told his fighters that they shouldn’t be “cruel” or “arrogant” in their moment of triumph. “Good governance is the need of the hour and must be taken into account by our colleagues. To compensate even a small mistake is a tall order.”
Haqqani does not speak like the internationally wanted terrorist that he is. Instead, he speaks authoritatively—like the head of a nation—the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. This is yet another indication of the American failure.
U.S. and U.N. officials are still pretending there is a “peace process” and there is a possibility that the Taliban may be willing to agree to a political settlement with Kabul.
The Taliban isn’t interested in peace. At all. The Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies went on the offensive immediately after the U.S. signed a withdrawal agreement with the group on Feb. 29, 2020. The jihadists have launched multiple offensives since then, including the most recent one. Yet, U.S. and U.N. officials continue to pretend that there is some sort of “peace process.” This is delusional.
"We are looking very carefully at the security on the ground in Afghanistan and we're also looking very hard at whether the Taliban is, at all, serious about a peaceful resolution of the conflict," Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told reporters on Friday.
“There is only one acceptable direction for Afghanistan—one acceptable direction—away from the battlefield and back to the negotiating table,” said Deborah Lyons, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan, on June 22.
But one doesn’t need to look “very hard” to discern the Taliban’s intentions. The jihadists are willing to extract more concessions at the negotiating table, without giving anything up. But they very much plan to win on the battlefield—and in recent weeks, they’ve done just that.
The Afghan government is scrambling to hold on. A delegation led by President Ashraf Ghani visited Washington this week as part of a last-ditch effort to convince President Biden that a full withdrawal of American forces will lead to further jihadist victories. It is unlikely that President Biden will be swayed. Like his predecessor, Biden decries America’s “endless wars” and is largely unconcerned by the terrorists’ endless jihad.
| Mary Stine14 hr ago My hubby, a decorated Vietnam vet, has always said our getting militarily involved in the Middle East was futile. I cannot disagree. The political, religious and philosophical sentiment there for centuries has been the same: tribal. No amount of Western military force can overcome this. It will take the majority of the people themselves to decide that they want something very different and are willing to make sacrifices to have that. There are indeed right now many Afghanis, mostly women, who yearn for a better, different life. We would have been better off to have sent factories, teachers and agricultural aid. The primary source of soldiers for all the Taliban and Isis are impoverished or socially inept young men, "educated" in the fundamentalist madrassas or indoctrinated online. Nothing will change that until there are job opportunities better than soldiering, and farms that can produce more than opium poppies. 2Reply |
| Glenn MederWrites Cherish the Constitution·Jun 25 We have stayed in Afghanistan far too long, and in my opinion, should never have gone in the first place. The reason that we are a target of terrorists is because we keep screwing with them and their families and their homes. Do an article about how many bombs we've dropped on Afghanistan and how many innocent lives we've killed. The number will be shocking. Bring our soldiers home. 10Reply |
75 more comments…
Posted for fair use.....
Taliban’s deputy emir issues guidance for governance in newly seized territory
BY THOMAS JOSCELYN | June 25, 2021 | tjoscelyn@gmail.com | @thomasjoscelyn
Sirajuddin Haqqani, as seen in a Taliban message published in April.
On June 24, the Taliban’s Voice of Jihad website released another message from Sirajuddin Haqqani, a close ally of al Qaeda who serves as the deputy emir of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Haqqani has repeatedly provided guidance to the group’s fighters, governors and judges throughout their latest offensive in Afghanistan. His latest message is addressed to the Taliban “military officials” overseeing the jihadists’ “continuous series of conquests.”
Haqqani knows that the jihadists can be unruly and prone to violent excesses. So, he advises the Taliban’s “district and provincial governors” to “pay attention to the instructions of” of the group’s leadership, namely the Amir ul-Momineen (“Emir of the Faithful”) Haibatullah Akhundzada and the Taliban’s military commission.
This is a “testing period” for the jihadists, Haqqani explains, as the campaign is evolving from a “military and jihadi” one into a “civilian situation.” He refers to the Taliban’s nascent government as a “system” and informs the group’s rank and file that they should “keep in mind the military, defense and civilian plans for the areas where Mujahideen enter.”
With these words, Haqqani means that the Taliban is now moving into a position of authority and governance throughout much of the country. And he wants the jihadists to “ehave well with the general public and pay attention to civilian and official documents and properties in offices, and make sure they are not lost.”
Haqqani likely wants to avoid the pitfalls of bad governance that the jihadists have experienced in several regions, including parts of Africa and in the Middle East.
“Good governance is the need of the hour and must be taken into account by our colleagues,” Haqqani says. He cautions the Taliban’s membership and officials that they shouldn’t “violate the rights of people.” They should rule “in accordance with Shari,” and consult with the “scholars” embedded in the “units,” as they will “carefully monitor the treasury and spoils.”
Haqqani also warns the jihadists not to seize the “belongings” of anyone who “voluntarily joins the Emirate,” as only the “equipment” seized during “times of war” is “considered as spoils.”
Haqqani offers further guidance for dealing with tribal elders and the Afghan officials who refuse to surrender, cautioning against “revenge” and instructing fighters to consult their superiors on such matters.
In a somewhat cryptic passage, Haqqani says the “political process that has been continuing on the side for the past 14 months has been very meaningful.” This is a reference to deal signed with the Americans in Doha on February 29, 2020. It is certainly “meaningful” for the Taliban, as the group has made no concessions while securing the withdrawal of all American and NATO forces. “In the future,” Haqqani adds, “our comrades must also tread carefully with activities that can harm Islamic and national values.”
Sirajuddin Haqqani is still a U.S. and U.N.-designated terrorist. But he doesn’t speak like a wanted man. Instead, his messages read like those that would be issued by the head of a nation. In this case, that nation is the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
The Taliban continues to produce occasional messages from its overall emir, Haibatullah Akhundzada. But in recent months, the more substantive public marching orders have come from Haqqani.
For example, in March, Haqqani addressed a “great assembly of mujahideen,” congratulating them on their battlefield successes. Much of his talk was clearly intended to prepare the jihadists for the Taliban’s transition from an insurgency to a government. The same theme is repeated in his most recent message.
Then, in April, Haqqani addressed “all the religious scholars and teachers,” explaining why the Taliban’s courts are a core part of the Islamic emirate he and his men are building in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, American officials continue to operate under the notion that it is possible the Taliban will agree to a political compromise with Kabul.
“We are looking very carefully at the security on the ground in Afghanistan and we’re also looking very hard at whether the Taliban is, at all, serious about a peaceful resolution of the conflict,” Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told reporters on Friday (June 25).
Secretary Blinken made this remark after the Taliban captured dozens of districts in recent weeks. Haqqani’s message, as well as a stream of other messages released by the Taliban, make it clear that the group is preparing to rule over the newly seized territory as part of its Islamic Emirate.
Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.
Taliban’s deputy emir issues guidance for governance in newly seized territory | FDD's Long War Journal
In a message posted this week, Sirajuddin Haqqani provides guidance to the Taliban's officials as they prepare to rule over newly seized territory. Haqqani explains that the campaign is evolving from a “military and jihadi” one into a “civilian situation,” meaning the Taliban is preparing to...
www.longwarjournal.org
Taliban’s deputy emir issues guidance for governance in newly seized territory
BY THOMAS JOSCELYN | June 25, 2021 | tjoscelyn@gmail.com | @thomasjoscelyn
On June 24, the Taliban’s Voice of Jihad website released another message from Sirajuddin Haqqani, a close ally of al Qaeda who serves as the deputy emir of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Haqqani has repeatedly provided guidance to the group’s fighters, governors and judges throughout their latest offensive in Afghanistan. His latest message is addressed to the Taliban “military officials” overseeing the jihadists’ “continuous series of conquests.”
Haqqani knows that the jihadists can be unruly and prone to violent excesses. So, he advises the Taliban’s “district and provincial governors” to “pay attention to the instructions of” of the group’s leadership, namely the Amir ul-Momineen (“Emir of the Faithful”) Haibatullah Akhundzada and the Taliban’s military commission.
This is a “testing period” for the jihadists, Haqqani explains, as the campaign is evolving from a “military and jihadi” one into a “civilian situation.” He refers to the Taliban’s nascent government as a “system” and informs the group’s rank and file that they should “keep in mind the military, defense and civilian plans for the areas where Mujahideen enter.”
With these words, Haqqani means that the Taliban is now moving into a position of authority and governance throughout much of the country. And he wants the jihadists to “ehave well with the general public and pay attention to civilian and official documents and properties in offices, and make sure they are not lost.”
Haqqani likely wants to avoid the pitfalls of bad governance that the jihadists have experienced in several regions, including parts of Africa and in the Middle East.
“Good governance is the need of the hour and must be taken into account by our colleagues,” Haqqani says. He cautions the Taliban’s membership and officials that they shouldn’t “violate the rights of people.” They should rule “in accordance with Shari,” and consult with the “scholars” embedded in the “units,” as they will “carefully monitor the treasury and spoils.”
Haqqani also warns the jihadists not to seize the “belongings” of anyone who “voluntarily joins the Emirate,” as only the “equipment” seized during “times of war” is “considered as spoils.”
Haqqani offers further guidance for dealing with tribal elders and the Afghan officials who refuse to surrender, cautioning against “revenge” and instructing fighters to consult their superiors on such matters.
In a somewhat cryptic passage, Haqqani says the “political process that has been continuing on the side for the past 14 months has been very meaningful.” This is a reference to deal signed with the Americans in Doha on February 29, 2020. It is certainly “meaningful” for the Taliban, as the group has made no concessions while securing the withdrawal of all American and NATO forces. “In the future,” Haqqani adds, “our comrades must also tread carefully with activities that can harm Islamic and national values.”
Sirajuddin Haqqani is still a U.S. and U.N.-designated terrorist. But he doesn’t speak like a wanted man. Instead, his messages read like those that would be issued by the head of a nation. In this case, that nation is the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
The Taliban continues to produce occasional messages from its overall emir, Haibatullah Akhundzada. But in recent months, the more substantive public marching orders have come from Haqqani.
For example, in March, Haqqani addressed a “great assembly of mujahideen,” congratulating them on their battlefield successes. Much of his talk was clearly intended to prepare the jihadists for the Taliban’s transition from an insurgency to a government. The same theme is repeated in his most recent message.
Then, in April, Haqqani addressed “all the religious scholars and teachers,” explaining why the Taliban’s courts are a core part of the Islamic emirate he and his men are building in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, American officials continue to operate under the notion that it is possible the Taliban will agree to a political compromise with Kabul.
“We are looking very carefully at the security on the ground in Afghanistan and we’re also looking very hard at whether the Taliban is, at all, serious about a peaceful resolution of the conflict,” Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told reporters on Friday (June 25).
Secretary Blinken made this remark after the Taliban captured dozens of districts in recent weeks. Haqqani’s message, as well as a stream of other messages released by the Taliban, make it clear that the group is preparing to rule over the newly seized territory as part of its Islamic Emirate.
Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.
jward
passin' thru
The Situation in Afghanistan Is Much Worse Than You Realize
Thomas Joscelyn
10-12 minutes
Halima Sarwar, 62, walks away weeping after visiting the gravesite for her late daugher, Fatima, in Kabul. (Photograph by Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images.)
Just two weeks after President Biden announced on April 14 his decision to withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan by September 11, the Taliban launched a massive offensive. Since May 1, the jihadists have captured a large swath of the country, laying the groundwork for the resurrection of their Islamic emirate. America and its allies have remained mostly indifferent—retreating from the battlefield as the jihadists advance.
This is what a lost war looks like.
Here are four takeaways from recent events.
The U.S. military is downplaying the Taliban’s gains.
While testifying before the House Armed Services Committee this week, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley tried to downplay the Taliban’s gains. “There's 81 district centers that are currently, we think, are underneath Taliban control. That's out of 419 district centers,” Milley claimed. “There's no provincial capital that is underneath Taliban control, and there’s 34 of those.”
Milley went on to argue that “60 percent of the 81 [district centers] were seized last year, and the others since the last two months or so.” He then went on to say that while the U.S. is “concerned,” there are enough Afghan forces “to defend their country.”
There are several problems with Milley’s figures. First, he claimed that 31 or 32 districts fell to the Taliban in the past “two months or so,” but that’s a very low estimate. That was an accurate figure in mid-June, but was no longer the right figure when Milley testified on June 23, as the Taliban continued its offensive.
The U.N. reported on June 22 that more than 50 districts have come under Taliban control since the beginning of May—and that was before the Taliban won even more ground in the past 72 hours. My colleague Bill Roggio, who follows this more closely than anyone, thinks that the Taliban has actually conquered 60 to 70 or more districts since May 1. Roggio’s figures are buttressed by reporting from the Afghan media, which has documented far more districts falling than Milley let on. To give you some perspective on the importance of the Taliban’s gains, Roggio likens an Afghan district to an American county in terms of land mass.
Second, Roggio estimates that the Taliban now controls more than 140 districts—60 or so more than Milley claimed before Congress. It is often difficult to discern when the jihadists have full control of a district. Even so, the majority of Afghanistan’s districts are, at a minimum, outside of Kabul’s control. Roggio also estimates that more than 170 districts are contested. That is in addition to the 140 or so he thinks are controlled by the Taliban, meaning three-quarters of the country is now outside of Kabul’s control. Milley did not inform Congress of this dire situation.
Third, while it is true that no provincial capitals have yet fallen to the Taliban, it is only a matter of time. The Taliban’s fighters have encircled multiple provincial capitals, deliberately waiting for U.S. and NATO forces to fully withdraw from the country before seizing at least some of them. To give just two examples from recent days, Taliban fighters have made incursions into Kunduz and are on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif, two of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals. Many more provincial capitals are surrounded.
The truth is that the U.S. military has attempted to downplay the Taliban’s battlefield gains for years. This is part of the American failure. In October 2018, the U.S. military stopped relying on estimates of the number of Taliban controlled and contested districts, arguing that such figures are “of limited decision-making value” to leaders and all that mattered was progress toward a “political settlement.” In reality, the U.S. military didn’t want to admit that the Taliban was slowly gaining ground at the time. And now the jihadists are taking territory at a rapid pace.
Much of the offensive is taking place in the north, far from the Taliban’s traditional strongholds, but in locations where al-Qaeda-affiliated groups are known to operate.
The Taliban’s home turf is in southern and eastern Afghanistan. But over time, the group has become stronger elsewhere throughout the country. This is due, in no small part, to al-Qaeda’s efforts.
Many of the districts that have fallen to the jihadis in recent weeks are located in Afghan provinces such as Balkh, Kunduz, Takhar and Badakhshan. These northern provinces border the Central Asian countries of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The Taliban’s fighters even seized the border crossing with Tajikistan, forcing 134 Afghan soldiers to flee into the neighboring country.
Naturally, the Taliban’s ranks in these areas include jihadists from the Central Asian states. In fact, al-Qaeda has groomed Central Asian fighters since the 1990s and it is likely that those efforts are now bearing fruit. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) was one of the first Central Asian jihadist groups to work closely with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It splintered several years ago, after its leadership defected to the Islamic State (ISIS), thereby provoking a crackdown by the Taliban. But other al-Qaeda-linked organizations that split off from the IMU, such as the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) and Ansarullah (which is comprised mainly of Tajiks), continue to fight on. In addition, the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), a predominately Uighur organization, is also known to train and fight in northern Afghanistan.
These al-Qaeda-affiliated outfits fight under the Taliban’s banner, so they advertise their role in the war only on occasion. Still, there is ample evidence pointing to their participation in the Taliban’s jihad. Their presence in the Taliban’s campaign became obvious after President Obama withdrew the vast majority of U.S. forces by the end of 2014. Months later, in the spring of 2015, the Taliban opened a major offensive across the north. That campaign was a harbinger of the current offensive and the role of the aforementioned al-Qaeda-affiliated Central Asian groups was well-documented at the time. It’s a safe bet they are still on the frontlines today.
One of the many analytic failures of the Afghan War involves these very same Central Asian jihadist groups. It’s well-known that they are part of al-Qaeda’s network and that they fight for the Taliban, but the U.S. and its allies never developed a working model to explain how they fit into al-Qaeda’s overall organization scheme. So, as U.S. officials repeatedly downplayed al-Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan, they ignored that these Central Asian groups were growing and didn’t factor them into the assessments of al-Qaeda’s total strength. This was true even though, for example, Uzbeks are known to be part of al-Qaeda’s international facilitation network and the leader of the TIP was drawing a salary from Osama bin Laden’s personnel budget.
Incredibly, American officials still can’t really explain how these Central Asian jihadists fit into al-Qaeda’s organization.
The Taliban’s deputy emir, Sirajuddin Haqqani, has issued orders regarding captured spoils and governance under the Islamic emirate.
The Taliban is preparing its men to rule. On June 24, the Taliban’s deputy emir, Sirajuddin Haqqani, released the latest in a series of instructions to his men. His message was posted on the Taliban’s prolific Voice of Jihad website. Haqqani is one of al-Qaeda’s closest allies and it is significant that, in this hour especially, he speaks for the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate.
Haqqani, a U.S.- and U.N.-designated terrorist, trumpeted his organization’s “continuous series of conquests,” instructing the Taliban’s “district and provincial governors” to “pay attention” to the orders coming down the chain of command. The Taliban leader told his fighters that they shouldn’t be “cruel” or “arrogant” in their moment of triumph. “Good governance is the need of the hour and must be taken into account by our colleagues. To compensate even a small mistake is a tall order.”
Haqqani does not speak like the internationally wanted terrorist that he is. Instead, he speaks authoritatively—like the head of a nation—the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. This is yet another indication of the American failure.
U.S. and U.N. officials are still pretending there is a “peace process” and there is a possibility that the Taliban may be willing to agree to a political settlement with Kabul.
The Taliban isn’t interested in peace. At all. The Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies went on the offensive immediately after the U.S. signed a withdrawal agreement with the group on Feb. 29, 2020. The jihadists have launched multiple offensives since then, including the most recent one. Yet, U.S. and U.N. officials continue to pretend that there is some sort of “peace process.” This is delusional.
"We are looking very carefully at the security on the ground in Afghanistan and we're also looking very hard at whether the Taliban is, at all, serious about a peaceful resolution of the conflict," Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told reporters on Friday.
“There is only one acceptable direction for Afghanistan—one acceptable direction—away from the battlefield and back to the negotiating table,” said Deborah Lyons, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan, on June 22.
But one doesn’t need to look “very hard” to discern the Taliban’s intentions. The jihadists are willing to extract more concessions at the negotiating table, without giving anything up. But they very much plan to win on the battlefield—and in recent weeks, they’ve done just that.
The Afghan government is scrambling to hold on. A delegation led by President Ashraf Ghani visited Washington this week as part of a last-ditch effort to convince President Biden that a full withdrawal of American forces will lead to further jihadist victories. It is unlikely that President Biden will be swayed. Like his predecessor, Biden decries America’s “endless wars” and is largely unconcerned by the terrorists’ endless jihad.
vitalinterests.thedispatch.com
Thomas Joscelyn
10-12 minutes
Halima Sarwar, 62, walks away weeping after visiting the gravesite for her late daugher, Fatima, in Kabul. (Photograph by Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images.)Just two weeks after President Biden announced on April 14 his decision to withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan by September 11, the Taliban launched a massive offensive. Since May 1, the jihadists have captured a large swath of the country, laying the groundwork for the resurrection of their Islamic emirate. America and its allies have remained mostly indifferent—retreating from the battlefield as the jihadists advance.
This is what a lost war looks like.
Here are four takeaways from recent events.
The U.S. military is downplaying the Taliban’s gains.
While testifying before the House Armed Services Committee this week, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley tried to downplay the Taliban’s gains. “There's 81 district centers that are currently, we think, are underneath Taliban control. That's out of 419 district centers,” Milley claimed. “There's no provincial capital that is underneath Taliban control, and there’s 34 of those.”
Milley went on to argue that “60 percent of the 81 [district centers] were seized last year, and the others since the last two months or so.” He then went on to say that while the U.S. is “concerned,” there are enough Afghan forces “to defend their country.”
There are several problems with Milley’s figures. First, he claimed that 31 or 32 districts fell to the Taliban in the past “two months or so,” but that’s a very low estimate. That was an accurate figure in mid-June, but was no longer the right figure when Milley testified on June 23, as the Taliban continued its offensive.
The U.N. reported on June 22 that more than 50 districts have come under Taliban control since the beginning of May—and that was before the Taliban won even more ground in the past 72 hours. My colleague Bill Roggio, who follows this more closely than anyone, thinks that the Taliban has actually conquered 60 to 70 or more districts since May 1. Roggio’s figures are buttressed by reporting from the Afghan media, which has documented far more districts falling than Milley let on. To give you some perspective on the importance of the Taliban’s gains, Roggio likens an Afghan district to an American county in terms of land mass.
Second, Roggio estimates that the Taliban now controls more than 140 districts—60 or so more than Milley claimed before Congress. It is often difficult to discern when the jihadists have full control of a district. Even so, the majority of Afghanistan’s districts are, at a minimum, outside of Kabul’s control. Roggio also estimates that more than 170 districts are contested. That is in addition to the 140 or so he thinks are controlled by the Taliban, meaning three-quarters of the country is now outside of Kabul’s control. Milley did not inform Congress of this dire situation.
Third, while it is true that no provincial capitals have yet fallen to the Taliban, it is only a matter of time. The Taliban’s fighters have encircled multiple provincial capitals, deliberately waiting for U.S. and NATO forces to fully withdraw from the country before seizing at least some of them. To give just two examples from recent days, Taliban fighters have made incursions into Kunduz and are on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif, two of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals. Many more provincial capitals are surrounded.
The truth is that the U.S. military has attempted to downplay the Taliban’s battlefield gains for years. This is part of the American failure. In October 2018, the U.S. military stopped relying on estimates of the number of Taliban controlled and contested districts, arguing that such figures are “of limited decision-making value” to leaders and all that mattered was progress toward a “political settlement.” In reality, the U.S. military didn’t want to admit that the Taliban was slowly gaining ground at the time. And now the jihadists are taking territory at a rapid pace.
Much of the offensive is taking place in the north, far from the Taliban’s traditional strongholds, but in locations where al-Qaeda-affiliated groups are known to operate.
The Taliban’s home turf is in southern and eastern Afghanistan. But over time, the group has become stronger elsewhere throughout the country. This is due, in no small part, to al-Qaeda’s efforts.
Many of the districts that have fallen to the jihadis in recent weeks are located in Afghan provinces such as Balkh, Kunduz, Takhar and Badakhshan. These northern provinces border the Central Asian countries of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The Taliban’s fighters even seized the border crossing with Tajikistan, forcing 134 Afghan soldiers to flee into the neighboring country.
Naturally, the Taliban’s ranks in these areas include jihadists from the Central Asian states. In fact, al-Qaeda has groomed Central Asian fighters since the 1990s and it is likely that those efforts are now bearing fruit. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) was one of the first Central Asian jihadist groups to work closely with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It splintered several years ago, after its leadership defected to the Islamic State (ISIS), thereby provoking a crackdown by the Taliban. But other al-Qaeda-linked organizations that split off from the IMU, such as the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) and Ansarullah (which is comprised mainly of Tajiks), continue to fight on. In addition, the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), a predominately Uighur organization, is also known to train and fight in northern Afghanistan.
These al-Qaeda-affiliated outfits fight under the Taliban’s banner, so they advertise their role in the war only on occasion. Still, there is ample evidence pointing to their participation in the Taliban’s jihad. Their presence in the Taliban’s campaign became obvious after President Obama withdrew the vast majority of U.S. forces by the end of 2014. Months later, in the spring of 2015, the Taliban opened a major offensive across the north. That campaign was a harbinger of the current offensive and the role of the aforementioned al-Qaeda-affiliated Central Asian groups was well-documented at the time. It’s a safe bet they are still on the frontlines today.
One of the many analytic failures of the Afghan War involves these very same Central Asian jihadist groups. It’s well-known that they are part of al-Qaeda’s network and that they fight for the Taliban, but the U.S. and its allies never developed a working model to explain how they fit into al-Qaeda’s overall organization scheme. So, as U.S. officials repeatedly downplayed al-Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan, they ignored that these Central Asian groups were growing and didn’t factor them into the assessments of al-Qaeda’s total strength. This was true even though, for example, Uzbeks are known to be part of al-Qaeda’s international facilitation network and the leader of the TIP was drawing a salary from Osama bin Laden’s personnel budget.
Incredibly, American officials still can’t really explain how these Central Asian jihadists fit into al-Qaeda’s organization.
The Taliban’s deputy emir, Sirajuddin Haqqani, has issued orders regarding captured spoils and governance under the Islamic emirate.
The Taliban is preparing its men to rule. On June 24, the Taliban’s deputy emir, Sirajuddin Haqqani, released the latest in a series of instructions to his men. His message was posted on the Taliban’s prolific Voice of Jihad website. Haqqani is one of al-Qaeda’s closest allies and it is significant that, in this hour especially, he speaks for the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate.
Haqqani, a U.S.- and U.N.-designated terrorist, trumpeted his organization’s “continuous series of conquests,” instructing the Taliban’s “district and provincial governors” to “pay attention” to the orders coming down the chain of command. The Taliban leader told his fighters that they shouldn’t be “cruel” or “arrogant” in their moment of triumph. “Good governance is the need of the hour and must be taken into account by our colleagues. To compensate even a small mistake is a tall order.”
Haqqani does not speak like the internationally wanted terrorist that he is. Instead, he speaks authoritatively—like the head of a nation—the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. This is yet another indication of the American failure.
U.S. and U.N. officials are still pretending there is a “peace process” and there is a possibility that the Taliban may be willing to agree to a political settlement with Kabul.
The Taliban isn’t interested in peace. At all. The Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies went on the offensive immediately after the U.S. signed a withdrawal agreement with the group on Feb. 29, 2020. The jihadists have launched multiple offensives since then, including the most recent one. Yet, U.S. and U.N. officials continue to pretend that there is some sort of “peace process.” This is delusional.
"We are looking very carefully at the security on the ground in Afghanistan and we're also looking very hard at whether the Taliban is, at all, serious about a peaceful resolution of the conflict," Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told reporters on Friday.
“There is only one acceptable direction for Afghanistan—one acceptable direction—away from the battlefield and back to the negotiating table,” said Deborah Lyons, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan, on June 22.
But one doesn’t need to look “very hard” to discern the Taliban’s intentions. The jihadists are willing to extract more concessions at the negotiating table, without giving anything up. But they very much plan to win on the battlefield—and in recent weeks, they’ve done just that.
The Afghan government is scrambling to hold on. A delegation led by President Ashraf Ghani visited Washington this week as part of a last-ditch effort to convince President Biden that a full withdrawal of American forces will lead to further jihadist victories. It is unlikely that President Biden will be swayed. Like his predecessor, Biden decries America’s “endless wars” and is largely unconcerned by the terrorists’ endless jihad.
The Situation in Afghanistan Is Much Worse Than You Realize
The U.S. military is downplaying the Taliban’s gains, and the U.S. and U.N. are pretending there is a viable peace process.
vitalinterests.thedispatch.com
Melodi
Disaster Cat
I'm glad I kept reading because it looks like for all their faults someone in the Biden Administration has a clue and is looking for places to evacuate former US employees and other US-allied folks and their families to a third country for processing. Even doing that, there will still be a bloodbath after the US finally leaves but if the US does not appear to be doing anything, it will be at least a generation before locals anywhere cooperate with the US in similar situations. That was the case for some time after Vietnam and it will happen again, this time with the internet and social media to keep up the drumbeat of the "The USA will use you and then leave you to die," meme.
That said, my heart goes out to the Afghan people especially anyone unlucky enough to be female in that country and of any age, but it is painfully obvious that no matter what eventually the Taliban is going to take over most of that country for a time.
All we can hope for is that they have learned something in the last 20 years, and also have a better idea of just what the outside world will and will not tolerate after the fall of the official Jihadi/ISIS kingdom.
Things like: open slave markets on youtube are not a good idea, nor is bragging about women's punishment squads even when imposed by other women; these don't play well in the West and are certain to get a lot of unwanted attention (message if you do this, do it quietly - the same is true for buying and selling of young boys).
It will be interesting to see if they try to shut all the girl's schools again and murder women who leave the home with no male family member (even if there isn't one) for any reason? My hunch is that in places where the world can watch they may allow a few very strict girls-only schools that are underfunded and don't teach much and for the elites move to a Saudi-like system of approved "drivers" for women at least of prominent citizens.
Life has never been great for women in most of the country, though it used to be much better for urban women than it has been for the last 25 to 30 years or so. But even rural women used to wear colorful clothing (with headdresses that were lovely), have stalled in the marketplace, and work beside their husbands without fear of abduction and rape.
Those things are unlikely to return under the Taliban, instead, life is going to be very grim and probably for a number of years. But this time if they destroy the women's hospital, there probably won't be any women OBGYN's for them to drag out of their houses and demand they start "saving" their sons when it suddenly dawns on them that no care in pregnancy or while giving birth leads to extremely tragic results and often no paternal legacy for "Dad."
Anyone with any training at all, especially anyone female is likely to flee the country before this Fall if they haven't already and I don't blame them.
But saying all this (and I could write ten more pages) the US simply can't stay there forever in a place even Alexander the Great finally just married into a local clan and let his father-in-law pretend to govern. The Taliban will either end up reorganize to a point that their people can kind of manage to live with it even if they hate it (like Iran) or they will be conquered at least unofficially by a more local power like Turkey or Pakistan. If they are not officially absorbed by a nearby nation, they will effectively become an Economic Dependent of one.
They simply don't do "empire" submission well and they have proved that all the modern technology in the world can't totally control or conquer a place whose geography and culture have made it: "The Graveyard of Empires."
There are reasons the real governmental system there is clan-based and not really well centralized, and that hasn't changed much in the last 3,000 plus years.
That said, my heart goes out to the Afghan people especially anyone unlucky enough to be female in that country and of any age, but it is painfully obvious that no matter what eventually the Taliban is going to take over most of that country for a time.
All we can hope for is that they have learned something in the last 20 years, and also have a better idea of just what the outside world will and will not tolerate after the fall of the official Jihadi/ISIS kingdom.
Things like: open slave markets on youtube are not a good idea, nor is bragging about women's punishment squads even when imposed by other women; these don't play well in the West and are certain to get a lot of unwanted attention (message if you do this, do it quietly - the same is true for buying and selling of young boys).
It will be interesting to see if they try to shut all the girl's schools again and murder women who leave the home with no male family member (even if there isn't one) for any reason? My hunch is that in places where the world can watch they may allow a few very strict girls-only schools that are underfunded and don't teach much and for the elites move to a Saudi-like system of approved "drivers" for women at least of prominent citizens.
Life has never been great for women in most of the country, though it used to be much better for urban women than it has been for the last 25 to 30 years or so. But even rural women used to wear colorful clothing (with headdresses that were lovely), have stalled in the marketplace, and work beside their husbands without fear of abduction and rape.
Those things are unlikely to return under the Taliban, instead, life is going to be very grim and probably for a number of years. But this time if they destroy the women's hospital, there probably won't be any women OBGYN's for them to drag out of their houses and demand they start "saving" their sons when it suddenly dawns on them that no care in pregnancy or while giving birth leads to extremely tragic results and often no paternal legacy for "Dad."
Anyone with any training at all, especially anyone female is likely to flee the country before this Fall if they haven't already and I don't blame them.
But saying all this (and I could write ten more pages) the US simply can't stay there forever in a place even Alexander the Great finally just married into a local clan and let his father-in-law pretend to govern. The Taliban will either end up reorganize to a point that their people can kind of manage to live with it even if they hate it (like Iran) or they will be conquered at least unofficially by a more local power like Turkey or Pakistan. If they are not officially absorbed by a nearby nation, they will effectively become an Economic Dependent of one.
They simply don't do "empire" submission well and they have proved that all the modern technology in the world can't totally control or conquer a place whose geography and culture have made it: "The Graveyard of Empires."
There are reasons the real governmental system there is clan-based and not really well centralized, and that hasn't changed much in the last 3,000 plus years.
jward
passin' thru
Don't we always have plans underway to evacuate and resettle folks who've assisted us and the trouble lie with how they often end up dead before we manage/bother to get it done : ( I can't imagine there's much trust left in us to be squandered, at this point, let alone for the future.
As to the plight of women and children, it's the same as always, though iirc they're just now at the formally requiring the women to resume head covering in some of the conquered areas, and the mass roll back of rights has not yet occurred.
Many of the conquered areas are surrendering without a fight, too, so hopefully in the short term, at least, the scars are not being etched as deeply as they otherwise would be.
There are some pretty well armed groups of women there too, with formal fighting training; perhaps that will help in some measure to keep the coming fall in quality of life from plunging as far as it otherwise would. Human nature being what it is, they'd be as likely to be the new aggressors as the new saviors though I imagine.
Some slight glimmers of hope in the near term are that they're reaching out through back channels for help with the running and maintaining of some of the infrastructure n such, and there was something surprising and encouraging about their policies w/ re: to children, though I don't recall what that was or if the girls were to benefit from the new and improved methods too or not. Still I'm sure it's hell. It always is, except for the lucky few.
I don't hold much hope for the eye of the civilized nations to be much help in improving their plights, either. We're too caught up in our new religion of identity politics and wokedness and it leaves us willfully blind to the actual victims on the world stage, or, worse, actively partnering with their oppressors in some weird mind #### that leaves the left able to champion and partner with real evil in order to defeat the imagined.
As to the plight of women and children, it's the same as always, though iirc they're just now at the formally requiring the women to resume head covering in some of the conquered areas, and the mass roll back of rights has not yet occurred.
Many of the conquered areas are surrendering without a fight, too, so hopefully in the short term, at least, the scars are not being etched as deeply as they otherwise would be.
There are some pretty well armed groups of women there too, with formal fighting training; perhaps that will help in some measure to keep the coming fall in quality of life from plunging as far as it otherwise would. Human nature being what it is, they'd be as likely to be the new aggressors as the new saviors though I imagine.
Some slight glimmers of hope in the near term are that they're reaching out through back channels for help with the running and maintaining of some of the infrastructure n such, and there was something surprising and encouraging about their policies w/ re: to children, though I don't recall what that was or if the girls were to benefit from the new and improved methods too or not. Still I'm sure it's hell. It always is, except for the lucky few.
I don't hold much hope for the eye of the civilized nations to be much help in improving their plights, either. We're too caught up in our new religion of identity politics and wokedness and it leaves us willfully blind to the actual victims on the world stage, or, worse, actively partnering with their oppressors in some weird mind #### that leaves the left able to champion and partner with real evil in order to defeat the imagined.
- Status