Afghanistan

KABUL, Aug 15 (Reuters) – Taliban insurgents entered Afghanistan’s capital Kabul on Sunday as the United States evacuated diplomats from its embassy by helicopter and a government minister said power would be handed over to an interim administration.

The developments capped a lightning advance by the Islamist militants, who were ousted from Kabul 20 years ago by U.S.-led forces after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

A senior Afghan interior ministry official told Reuters the Taliban were coming “from all sides” into the capital but gave no further details. There were no reports of fighting.

Taliban enter Kabul, await ‘peaceful transfer’ of power

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban fighters entered Kabul on Sunday and sought the unconditional surrender of the central government, officials said, as Afghans and foreigners alike raced for the exit, signaling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking Afghanistan.

The beleaguered central government, meanwhile, hoped for an interim administration, but increasingly had few cards to play. Civilians fearing that the Taliban could reimpose the kind of brutal rule that all but eliminated women’s rights rushed to leave the country, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings.

The United States spent more than $88 billion to train and equip Afghanistan’s army and police, nearly two-thirds of all of its foreign aid to the country since 2002. So why are they crumbling in the face of the Taliban onslaught?

The breathtaking failure to mold a cohesive and independent Afghan fighting force can be traced to years of overly optimistic assessments from U.S. officials that obscured — and in some cases, purposely hid — evidence of deep-rooted corruption, low morale, and even “ghost soldiers and police” who existed merely on the payrolls of the Afghan Defense and Interior Ministries, according to current and former officials directly involved in the training effort.

h/t PK

The end for Afghan forces in the south-western provincial capital of Zaranj, a trading hub close to the Iranian border, was announced by a Taliban commander. Except that he framed it as a start, and an ominous one.

“This is the beginning,” he declared in a statement. “See how other provinces fall in our hands very soon.”

The capital of Nimroz province, Zaranj was captured on 6 August, the first major city to fall to a Taliban assault in years.

Seven-hundred seventy-eight billion dollars spent. Twenty years of warfare. 3,000 American lives lost. And Afghanistan looks like it’s going to collapse by the day Joe Biden pulls out on 9/11. The Taliban has done an ISIS-like blitzkreig-style takeover of the country in the last month and they’re dancing with glee in government offices of the provincial capitals they’ve taken over. As Joe Biden pleads with the barbarians not to attack the embassy, they’d get a kick out of setting fire to the soon-to-be undefended U.S. embassy in the capital on that grimly symbolic day.

This is far from Joe Biden’s only idiocy on the Afghan pullout front.

Everything he’s done in recent days has been a colossal mistake.

On Wednesday Axios reported that “the Taliban has stunned even some seasoned military and national security officials in the U.S. government with the speed of its conquests over the past week.”

This admission that much of the D.C. national security establishment was clueless to the rapid rise of Taliban rule and swift fall of the Afghan government is not surprising. They are at fault for promoting an unattainable outcome in Afghanistan for almost two decades, and are suddenly “stunned” when faced with the reality that has existed in Afghanistan all along.

… The Afghan army and police has a troubled history of high casualties, desertions and corruption – with some unscrupulous commanders claiming the salaries of troops who simply didn’t exist – so called “ghost soldiers”.

In its latest report to the US Congress, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR) expressed “serious concerns about the corrosive effects of corruption… and the questionable accuracy of data on the actual strength of the force”.

Jack Watling, of the Royal United Services Institute, says even the Afghan army has never been sure of how many troops it actually has.

If you like neat lines, tidiness and admire symmetry, what’s not to like about the decision of Joe Biden to pull American combat troops out of Afghanistan by 11 September 2021 – exactly 20 years on from 9/11?

In modern day America it often feels that all roads lead back to 9/11; the single most defining – and scarring – event since Pearl Harbor: the surprise attack by the Japanese on America’s Pacific fleet, which would ultimately bring America into World War Two.

Little to nothing was accomplished after 20 years and the cost was just too high. Too many lives lost.

It’s ugly but getting out is the right thing to do.

If another attack originates from there or elsewhere bomb them into the stone age, forget about nation building.

Canada sending forces to close Afghan embassy: official

TORONTO — Canadian special forces will deploy to Afghanistan where Canadian embassy staff in Kabul will be evacuated before closing, a source familiar with the plan told The Associated Press.

The official, who was not authorized to talk publicly about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity, did not say how many special forces would be sent.

Taliban sweep across Afghanistan’s south; take 4 more cities

The Taliban completed their sweep of Afghanistan’s south on Friday as they took four more provincial capitals in a lightning offensive that is gradually encircling Kabul, just weeks before the U.S. is set to officially end its two-decade war.

The latest significant blow was the loss of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, where American, British and allied NATO forces fought some of the bloodiest battles in the past 20 years. Hundreds of foreign troops were killed in the province, which is also a major opium hub.

The Pentagon is sending 3,000 troops back into Afghanistan to help evacuate some personnel from the US embassy amid the Taliban’s surging encroachment on the capital city of Kabul.

Those 3,000 troops, part of three infantry battalions, are in addition to the over 650 US service members still currently stationed in Afghanistan.

Another 3,500 to 4,000 reserve forces will be stationed in Kuwait on standby, and another 1,000 will go to Qatar to help with Special Immigrant Visa processing.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said: ‘We believe this is it the prudent thing to do given the rapidly deteriorating security situation in and around Kabul.’

The Taliban have taken the strategically important city of Ghazni, the 10th provincial capital to fall to the militants in less than a week.

Afghan security forces arrested Ghazni’s governor and his deputy after they fled the city.

Ghazni is on the major Kabul-Kandahar motorway, linking militant strongholds in the south to the capital, Kabul.

Taking Ghazni is thought to increase the likelihood that the Taliban could eventually aim to take Kabul itself.

Afghan Ambassador to the US slams Biden for suggesting there is a ‘political solution’ to Taliban onslaught

Afghanistan’s Ambassador to the United States has slammed President Biden for suggesting there’s a ‘political solution’ to the onslaught of violent Taliban fighters amid fears Kabul could fall to them within 30 days.

Responding to Defense Department Press Secretary John Kirby’s claim that it was no longer feasible for the US to offer air support to Afghan forces, Adela Raz said: ‘But it is feasible because you did that. You did that post-9/11 and it you took control of the entire country in 2 weeks.’

Afghan government could fall to Taliban in 90 days, say US officials

US officials have warned that Afghanistan’s government could fall in 90 days, with Kabul isolated in as little as a month, as the Taliban overran the central Sarposa prison in Kandahar, the country’s second largest city, releasing almost 1,000 prisoners.

The fall of Kandahar – sometimes called the capital of the south – would be a devastating blow for the Afghan government after a week in which the Taliban have swept up provincial capitals around the country in a lightning offensive.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. diplomat who negotiated a withdrawal deal with the Taliban last year, is back in Doha, Qatar, desperately trying to cobble together some kind of face-saving agreement for the Afghan government that would allow them to leave the country alive.

Joe Biden urges Afghans to ‘fight for their nation’ as Taliban advance continues

Joe Biden has urged the Afghan government to “fight for their nation” even as a Taliban offensive continued to make rapid gains, taking yet another provincial capital.

Faizabad, the provincial capital of the northern Badakhshan province, fell overnight to the Taliban, which control 65% of the country and nine out of 34 provincial capitals as the US and Nato finalise their withdrawal after a decades-long war.

Yea, Joe will rally them.