The fall of capitals in Badakhshan and Baghlan provinces, to the northeast, as well as Farah provincial to the west, increased pressure on the central government of Afghanistan to stop the advance. This was even after it lost a major Kunduz base. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani raced to Balkh, which was already surrounded by Taliban-held territory to help push back insurgents. His army chief of staff was also replaced.
Although the attack on Kabul’s capital has not directly endangered it, the speedy advance raises doubts about how long the Afghan government will be able to retain control over the small sliver of the country that it has left. To defend the capital and a few other cities, the government might have to withdraw.
“I think President Ghani would like to know that if you are spread out all over the country, the Taliban will continue to use their current approach with success,” said Ben Barry, senior fellow for land warfare at International Institute for Strategic Studies. You have to do more than just stop the Taliban. They have to be shown that you can push them back.
It is also questionable whether the Taliban will ever be able to join long-stalled peace negotiations in Qatar that were aimed at moving Afghanistan towards an inclusive interim government as the West desired. The Taliban could be able to come to power either by force or through faction fighting, as it did in 1989 after the Soviet withdrawal.
Multiple fronts of battle have made it difficult for the government to deploy its special operations forces. Regular troops have fled the battlefield many times. Civilians have fled the capital in fear of the violence.
Although the U.S. military plans to withdraw by the end the month, it has not participated in ground operations.
According to the latest U.S. military intelligence assessment that takes into account recent gains by the Taliban, Kabul could be under insurgent pressure in 30 days. If current trends continue, the Taliban could take full control of the country in a few months. A U.S. defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity shared the internal assessment.
Humayoon Shahhidzada, a Farah lawmaker, confirmed Wednesday that his province’s capital was the same.
Taliban fighters carried the bloody, shoeless corpse of an Afghan security force member along the street shouting “God is great!” The Taliban fighters were armed with M-16 rifles and drove Humvees and Ford pickup trucks that the Americans donated.
“The situation in the city is under control, our mujahedeen have been patrolling in the area,” a Taliban fighter, who didn’t give his name, said. He referred to his fellow insurgents “holy warriors.”
Farah continued to hear the crackle of automatic weapons fire throughout the day.
Hujatullah Khradmand, a Badakhshan lawmaker, claimed that the Taliban had taken Faizabad, his province’s capital. A Taliban official spoke anonymously to discuss an unacknowledged loss and said Baghlan’s capital, Poli-Khumri also fell.
Multiple requests for comment from the Afghan government and military regarding the loss of life were not answered.
Insurgents had earlier captured six other provincial capitals within a matter of days.
According to Ghulam Ravani Rabani, a Kunduz provincial council member and Shah Khan Sherzad, the Taliban took over the headquarters of 217th Corps, Afghan National Army, at Kunduz Airport. They posted online video claiming to have captured surrendering troops.
Kunduz, the capital of the province, was also seized. Now, the Taliban have taken control of the northeast.
Although it was not immediately clear what equipment the insurgents had left behind, a Taliban video showed them riding in Humvees or pickup trucks. Another video showed fighters standing on the airport’s runway next to an attack helicopter that didn’t have rotor blades.
Attaullah Afghan, provincial council head, stated that a suicide bomber attacked the government-held police headquarters in southern Helmand, where the Taliban control almost all of the capital of Lashkar Gar. It has been under siege since two weeks.
Fears that the same brutal tactics used to rule Afghanistan in the past will be used again are raised by the Taliban’s rapid fall to large swathes of Afghanistan to the Taliban. Some civilians fleeing Taliban advances claim that the Taliban have placed repressive restrictions upon women and destroyed schools. There have also been reports of revenge killings.
In the face of the rapid deterioration in Afghanistan, Germany and the Netherlands both announced Wednesday they’d suspend deportations to the country.
A senior EU official spoke Tuesday to journalists and said that the insurgents controlled some 230 of the more than 400 districts in Afghanistan. Another 65 were under government control, while the rest were contested, according to the official. To discuss internal figures, the official spoke under anonymity.
The Taliban have also taken over large swathes of northern Afghanistan, with the exception of Balkh province. Atta Mohammad Noor, Abdul Rashid Dostum and Mohammad Mohaqiq, all warlords, planned to mobilize troops to support the Afghan government in order to defeat the Taliban.
Dostum has a troubled history. He was investigated after the U.S.-led invasion of 2001. Dostum killed hundreds of Taliban fighters by letting them drown in sealed shipping containers.
Dostum stated Wednesday that the Taliban “won’t be able leave the north” and would face the same fate as the suffocated troops.
According to an Afghan official speaking to the AP, Ghani ordered Gen. Hibatullah Alizai the Afghan army chief-of-staff. Because the decision was not yet made public, the Defense Ministry official spoke under anonymity.
Alizai was commander of the Afghan army’s Special Operations Corps — elite troops who, together with the air force have been forced into the majority of the fighting after regular forces collapsed. This is despite a 20-year Western military mission, billions of dollars spent training and strengthening Afghan forces, and even though the war was over.
