Afghanistan

You would hope that the Afghan public is strenuously opposed to a return to an intolerant caliphate

Alast-ditch effort to broker peace in Afghanistan will be made in the Qatari capital of Doha this weekend. A senior Afghan government delegation which includes Abdullah Abdullah, chair of the country’s High Council for National Reconciliation, and former national president Hamid Karzai will engage in talks with the Taliban. Afghanistan’s unending 42-year civil war has intensified with the imminent departure of western armed forces led by the United States.

The Taliban are reported to have raised their flag above a key border post between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and claim it is now under their control.

Videos being shared on social media show the white flag fluttering above the Spin Boldak crossing near Kandahar.

Afghan officials have denied the post has fallen, although pictures on social media show the militants chatting to Pakistani border guards.

The BBC has been told the Taliban took the border crossing with no resistance.

Insurgents make full covering mandatory and ban movement without guardians, say residents of recently captured areas

As the Taliban and government battle for control of Afghanistan, residents of areas seized recently by the insurgents are already experiencing life under the repressive regime toppled two decades ago.

Emboldened by the withdrawal of US and Nato troops, the Taliban launched major offensives into new territory in northern and western provinces. Afghan forces have kept control of provincial capitals, but the insurgents have made gains in surrounding districts.

When the war ended in 1988, it was not because the Soviets had been beaten on the battlefield but because they had been exhausted

As US and British forces pull out of Afghanistan, further victims of the ‘grave of empires’, Russia is experiencing a mix of satisfaction, exasperation and trepidation.

It has its own bitter memories of the country, after all. In 1979, as a friendly regime was falling back in the face of a mounting Islamic fundamentalist insurgency, Soviet forces rolled into Afghanistan. The idea was that by installing a new leader and mounting a brief show of force, the rebels would be intimidated back into line. Six months, the old men in the Kremlin told themselves, that is all it would take.

September 11, 2021: All US and allied troops have left Afghanistan and Taliban gunmen are already at the ports of Kabul; one more push and they will be back where they were in 2001 just before America and Afghan allied forces sent them running like rats jumping out of a sinking ship. Once again darkness falls on Afghanistan.

Or does it? Not so fast.

Wishful thinking?

KABUL, July 9, (Reuters) – Afghan Air Force Major Dastagir Zamaray had grown so fearful of Taliban assassinations of off-duty forces in Kabul that he decided to sell his home to move to a safer pocket of Afghanistan’s sprawling capital.

Instead of being greeted by a prospective buyer at his realtor’s office earlier this year, the 41-year-old pilot was confronted by a gunman who walked inside and, without a word, fatally shot the real estate agent in the mouth.

Zamaray reached for his sidearm but the gunman shot him in the head. The father of seven collapsed dead on his 14-year-old son, who had tagged along. The boy was spared, but barely speaks anymore, his family says.

Taliban capture key Afghanistan-Iran border crossing

More – The Taliban have captured a major border crossing between Afghanistan and Iran, according to Afghan officials.

Video footage appeared to show Taliban forces taking down the Afghan flag from the roof of the border customs office.

The Islam Qala crossing is one of the biggest trade gateways into Iran, generating an estimated $20m (£14m) monthly revenue for the government.

The Taliban are rapidly retaking land across Afghanistan as the US-led mission removes the last of its troops.

… According to the US Department of Defense, the total military expenditure in Afghanistan (from October 2001 until September 2019) had reached $778bn.

In addition, the US state department – along with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other government agencies – spent $44bn on reconstruction projects.

That brings the total cost – based on official data – to $822bn between 2001 and 2019, but it doesn’t include any spending in Pakistan, which the US uses as a base for Afghan-related operations.

Afghan troops have been filmed laying down their arms to the Taliban as the terror group shows off the American-made weapons it has seized after US and Nato troops beat a hasty retreat.

The Afghan army is collapsing across the country and the Taliban appear to be winning the propaganda war with videos to prove that they will welcome surrendering soldiers – as long as they hand over their state-of-the-art weapons and Humvee armoured cars.

The US left Bagram Airfield last week – its fortress in the country for nearly 20 years – by slipping away in the night without telling the base’s new Afghan commander who discovered they had gone the next morning.

The US war in Afghanistan was not supposed to be another Vietnam. “I don’t do quagmires,” said Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the original US invasion, who died last week. In the end the former US defence secretary did two quagmires, airily assuming Afghanistan was “won” in the spring of 2003 when he sent American troops to fight in Iraq.

US combat troops were in Vietnam for eight years, but they have been in Afghanistan for 20. It has been America’s longest war by far.

Joe Biden has insisted the withdrawal is not quite complete, but the remaining few hundred US troops in Afghanistan are there on guard duty. The abandonment of Bagram airbase on Friday marked the true end to the US military presence in the country.