Afghanistan: Taliban Reaches Kabul’s Outskirts (Updates – Collapse Accelerates)
The AP: “Afghan government forces are collapsing even faster than U.S. military leaders thought possible.”
This post will be updated at the bottom as new developments are happening quickly.
Less than four weeks ahead of the full U.S. troop withdrawal, the Taliban has reached the outskirts of Afghanistan’s capital Kabul. With Taliban forces marching on the Afghan capital from several directions, the Mujahedeen were now just 7 miles south of Kabul, the Associated Press reported on Saturday.
The Taliban has reportedly seized 19 of country’s 34 regional capitals and other major cities, including the Afghanistan’s second-largest city Kandahar.
Despite Afghan national army’s failure to halt Taliban offensive, country’s President Ashraf Ghani has so far remained defiant. “In the current situation, the remobilization of our security and defense forces is our top priority, and serious steps are being taken in this regard,” Ghani said in a televised address. The Taliban has demanded president’s resignation as a precondition for any formal negotiation.
However, with Taliban now controlling most of Afghanistan, the government in Kabul may not hold for long. The Ghani-led government now only controls two big cities, Kabul and northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
The Associated Press reported Taliban’s rapid advance on Kabul:
The Taliban seized two more provinces on Saturday and approached the outskirts of Afghanistan’s capital while also launching a multi-pronged assault on a major northern city defended by former warlords, Afghan officials said.
The insurgents have captured much of northern, western and southern Afghanistan in a breakneck offensive less than three weeks before the United States is set to withdraw its last troops, raising fears of a full militant takeover or another Afghan civil war.
The Taliban captured all of Logar province, just south of the capital, Kabul, and detained local officials, said Hoda Ahmadi, a lawmaker from the province. She said the Taliban have reached the Char Asyab district, just 11 kilometers (7 miles) south of Kabul.
The insurgents also captured the capital of Paktika, bordering Pakistan, according to Khalid Asad, a lawmaker from the province. He said fighting broke out in Sharana early Saturday but ended after local elders intervened to negotiate a pullout. He said the governor and other officials surrendered and were on their way to Kabul.
Afghan Military: The High Cost of Failure
The U.S. and NATO-trained Afghan national army has failed to put up an effective fight in face of the Taliban onslaught. Most of the country has now fallen under the control of the Mujahedeen without any serious resistance from well-equipped government forces. There are reports of government troops surrendering in large numbers to Taliban or running across the border seeking refuge in neighboring countries.
The Afghan military failure comes at a huge price tag. “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,” the Politico noted on Friday.
The hasty withdrawal ordered by the Biden administration has resulted in U.S. weaponry ending up in Taliban’s hands. “The Taliban seized billions of dollars of US military equipment from Kunduz Airport this week, including Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, drones and humvees, as the militant group has quickly taken control of key cities across the country,” The UK newspaper Independent reported on Friday.
The #Taliban not only seized appr. a hundred US humvees and (MaxxPro) MRAPs at Kunduz airport, but also several US ScanEagle drones.
Billions of US tax payer $ going to Islamist extremists, thanks to the administration's hasty withdrawal without a peace deal or follow up mission. pic.twitter.com/Fb5MTpdLKK— Julian Röpcke (@JulianRoepcke) August 12, 2021
UN Calls Taliban to Show “Good Faith,” EU Threatens “Isolation”
As jihadis are on the verge of creating another Islamic States, the much-feted international community is failing to show any spine.
The United Nations chief António Guterres urged Taliban to halt the offensive and negotiate in “good faith.” Guterres “on Friday called on Taliban militants to “immediately halt” their offensive against Government forces and return to the negotiating table in good faith, “in the interest of Afghanistan, and its people”,” a UN press statement said.
The UN Security Council is reportedly drafting a strongly-worded condemnation of Taliban’s actions. The 15-member body was still debating on the wordings of the resolution, the Reuters reported on Friday.
The European Union threatened the Taliban with diplomatic ‘isolation’ if its seized the country by force. “If power is taken by force and an Islamic Emirate re-established, the Taliban would face non-recognition, isolation, lack of international support and the prospect of continued conflict and protracted instability in Afghanistan,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell declared.
The most feebly response, however, came from the Biden White House. The administration is pleading Taliban to “spare” the U.S. Embassy in the coming battle for Kabul. “U.S. Asks Taliban to Spare Its Embassy in Coming Fight for Kabul,” a headline in the New York Times said on Thursday.
President Trump: “Do You Miss Me Yet?”
While the mainstream media is silent of President Biden’s disastrous handling of the U.S. troops withdrawal from Afghanistan, former President Donald Trump slammed his successor.
“Tragic mess in Afghanistan, a completely open and broken Border, crime at record levels, oil prices through the roof, inflation rising, and taken advantage of by the entire world—DO YOU MISS ME YET?” the former president said in an short statement published by The New York Post.
The Horror of Sharia Returns
Taliban’s recent military advance has been accompanied by revenge killings and mass executions. The Islamic militia is not only executing captured soldiers, but also artists and critics.
The Taliban, inspired by the Sharia law, is using the same playbook used by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. “Taliban commanders have demanded that communities turn over unmarried women to become “wives” for their fighters,” The Wall Street Journal reported citing local human rights groups.
The Taliban has vowed to reintroduce Sharia and turn the country into an Islamic Emirate. When the Taliban previously ruled the country, “women were banned from work and girls were not allowed to attend school. Women had to cover their face and be accompanied by a male relative outside their homes,” The BBC noted. “Punishments such as stoning to death and amputations were introduced.”
UPDATES:
Reports confirm that the last Afghan government bastion, the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, has fallen to Taliban.
“The Taliban have captured a large, heavily defended city in northern Afghanistan in a major setback for the government, and the insurgents are approaching the capital less than three weeks before the U.S. hopes to complete its troop withdrawal,” The AP reported.
Mazar-i-Sharif is the place where CIA officer Johnny “Mike” Spann fell, the first American killed in Afghanistan after 9/11.
BREAKING: President Biden orders 1,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne's alert brigade out of Fort Bragg to reinforce U.S. troops in Kabul. 5,000 U.S. forces will now be on the ground to evacuate Americans from Afghanistan.
— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) August 14, 2021
US intelligence agencies who said just 4 days ago that Kabul could fall in 90 days have revised the figure to 72 hours
https://t.co/v2XUuPVcKX— Bruno Maçães (@MacaesBruno) August 14, 2021
America's suffering one of its worst foreign policy defeats in history and definitely worst in the lifetime of millennials and on down….and all we get from the White House is a tweet of Joe pretending to take notes at Camp David on a video call. https://t.co/eybBp5Ds8q
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 14, 2021
Extraordinary scenes of #Afghanistan’s military fleeing to #Iran with advanced equipment, likely supplied by US. Iran’s defense industries will want to get their hands on that equipment pic.twitter.com/0Ei2EgKiQ4
— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) August 14, 2021
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Comments
Afghanistan moving back to the 7th century again.
Nice going Sundowner.
Oh wait, he’s been hiding in Delaware so must be someone else pulling the strings.
They’ve been at each others’ throats for centuries. Russian blood and treasure was spilled there for nothing. Now, ours.
As horrible as it all is, that should not be our circus. If nothing else, we can’t afford it.
Its already over.
Taliban have operatives in Kabul.
They have had people there for years and many more in the last 4 months.
US Intel is a joke.
This is what happens when you have a ideological filter. Your Intel is worthless. Either the reports get sugar coated and the staff fear being the bearer of news that differs from what the brass wants to hear. Lives lost to idiocy.
Parents and friends of every person killed or injured during this misadventure have to live with the terrible reality that it was all wasted. Biden withdrew without a peace treaty or a plan. Please say its Biden’s Saigon – Actually its worse than Saigon. The Taliban will slaughter everyone that had any meaningful interaction with NATO or the USA.
“They’ve been at each others’ throats for centuries.”
Isn’t this true for all the Middle East? That is why policy for the region has always been so difficult. They are dull witted and innately volatile. I understand that Afghanistan is not part of the Middle East, yet they sure as hell act like they are.
It never left the 7th century the idiots in the Pentagon just PRETENDED that it did to keep the money flowing.
Any veteran that went there or knew people there in the last 10 years knew exactly this disaster was going to unfold when we left.
The Afghan army and government is a fucking corrupt, incompetent joke that has been propped up by the US for 15 years.
Ask anybody that’s been there. The US not only did not hold the Afghan army or government to any kind of actual standard, the frontline troops WERE NOT ALLOWED to enforce actual standards on them despite them literally begging to do it.
Prime example – in 2011 I had a buddy there part of training an Afghan military unit. They gave money (I think it was around $30,000) to the unit commander for boots and uniforms for the unit. Three weeks later they still had no boots and no uniforms, and the commander had a new car. Did they demand the Afghan government fire him, prosecute him, and give them a new commander that would actually do his job? Did they demand the money back? No. The US commander in charge told my friend it was HIS FAULT and that next time he should have bought the boots/uniforms himself. That is why the Afghan army is a laughable failure.
BECAUSE we propped them up, they were shielded from the natural consequences of their corruption and incompetence until they grew to truly catastrophic levels.
And if any ‘analyst’ tells you with a straight fucking face that nobody saw this coming, then they are either a liar or so utterly incompetent that they should be fired INSTANTLY.
“The Pentagon spent $88 billion dollars training the Afghan Army for 20 years
It collapsed in 1 month”
— Jack Posobiec
I don’t care if they want to live in the 7th century. As long as they don’t try anything like 9/11 ever again.
Next time no boots on the ground. Next time Afghanistan gets turned into glass.
But, leave the Saudis alone.
Right after 9/11 a Christian Syrian doctor I worked with was quite adamant that Kabul should have been glowing green glass without bothering to wait. If we’d done that, probably fewer innocent Afghan women would be dead and we might have stood a chance of getting them back to the modern era.
Biden unleashes the next version of ISIS. Can this guy do anything right, aside from doing everything wrong?
As someone with experience training indigenous soldiers in multiple nations on multiple continents I offer the following informed observations.
The US adopts an arrogant position in our planning. We underestimate the difficulty of the task. By task I mean that we insist upon a predetermined outcome which routinely ignores the local culture. We almost always try to superimpose our Western standards, which spring from our Western culture, upon the locals.
We don’t account for the inevitable clash. Those of us on the sharp end do, but the HQ types set wholly unrealistic goals and timelines. When we utilize the initially assigned metrics to monitor, evaluate and report on progress the results are always below the unrealistic expectations.
The next step for the HQ is to ‘refine’ the reporting system and the metrics. The measurements are redefined so that what was a below standard performance is magically transformed into an acceptable level of performance. Any subjective input from those in the field which allows the ability to write a critique is eliminated in favor of objective, yes/no questions which are carefully constructed to require a n affirmative answer.
Why? Simple. The 2 or 3 Star in charge of the effort doesn’t like the prospect of failure. They must succeed or be relieved. A relief is unthinkable because they will become unsuitable for cushy and lucrative post retirement employment opportunities.
Bottom line is everyone in the military and veteran communities who has any first hand experience in working with indigenous forces knew what would happen in Afghanistan. Go and review the DoD briefings by Mr Kirby, a retired Admiral. Parse his statements. Read between the lines of what was said and left unsaid.
Kirby is clearly attempting to communicate that the DoD knew what would happen but that they follow the directives of the CiC. Don’t accept that. It’s true but incomplete. It’s another DoD lie of omission. The fact is the DoD knew what would happen but because they have been providing happy crappy reports about the capabilities of the Afghan forces to justify continuing US presence and dollars they boxed themselves into a corner.
The unreported truth about the capability of the Afghan forces is being shown. The perfumed princes of the Pentagon don’t want to get splashed now that the crap is hitting the fan in full view. Their congressional, State Dept and contractor allies need to be held to account as well.
Adding to what you’re saying (if not simplifying it): it appears Biden has abandoned BILLIONS in US tech in Afghanistan for his Chi-Comm extorters. The military-industrial complex is not complaiing, either.
If anyone here actually believes Biden is NOT being extorted, you need a reality check.
It’s deeper than that in terms of institutional rot in DoD. I don’t know about Biden being bought so much as simple incompetence.
The depots of equipment should have been destroyed initially or alternatively when being in danger of being overrun by air strikes or missiles. That has several advantages. It prevents the propaganda victory of the capture, it kills the Taliban and provides an incentive to remaining Afghan forces. No one likes danger close strikes.
“… That has several advantages….”
Commo, of course it does. But ‘incompetence’ has nothing to do with it – at least as Biden is concerned. Unless that addled moron put out an order to IMMEDATELY withdraw – like, that day – no military on earth is as systemically incompetent as to leave what we left behind to the Taliban and their Chi-Comm partners. Not even a moron like Lloyd Austin would do that out of negligence.
The leaving behind of the gear was intentional. And it was done for nefarious reasons.
The equipment was left for the Afghans to use during and after the drawdown of forces. It was a choice of; destroy it, which looks malicious to the Afghans, ship it home which is far too costly, or give it the Afghans where it might do some good.
We deliberately left the equipment intact that you see in the photos. Look at the photo of the vehicles at the airport. No US markings, no bumper #, no unit ID marking. Those were left for the Afghan Army which allowed the Taliban to capture them. Looking close it appears they haven’t moved in some time.
Those particular vehicles and drones were not employed by the Afghans. Could be a case of excess to need. Could be inability to service and maintain. Could be incompetent Afghans. Could be the guy in control of the equipment is only important so long as he is in possession. Once he gives them up to another unit his personal power level decreases. This is exactly the kind of shit I was describing in my original post.
Thank you for the inside insight. Very helpful.
No problem. The basic point is that the DoD greatly inflated the actual performance capabilities of the Afghan forces. This was a deliberate lie to justify continuing to spend $ and maintain advisors, along with lucrative post retirement employment opportunities for the princes of the Pentagon.
The true capabilities of the Afghan forces are on display. A reckoning is way past due for their lies to Congress and the American People.
We cannot go into other countries and make permanent changes that will alter their future, but yet, genius that she is, Kamala Harris says she would do just that. She would go to countries in central America and make changes to solve their problems so that they would not want to come to the US.
But at least we don’t have that Evil Orange Man making mean tweets on Twitter®, right? Right!?!
Who would give a thumbs down to that comment? I guess it was an accident.
But more importantly…
“What kind of ice cream today, President Biden?”
And…
“Have you identified how the imminent fall of Kabul is connected to white rage and the Jan 6 Insurrection General Milley?”
— Dem-media propaganda and ‘news’ complex
Plus…No need to worry about the Taliban because the greatest terrorist threats to America are now from domestic terrorists…
https://www.dhs.gov/ntas/advisory/national-terrorism-advisory-system-bulletin-august-13-2021
Welcome to the New Soviet Union — American Style
Turns out, we are the enemy
That’s what Pogo said. “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
We’re edging closer and closer to civil war – American style.
“Tragic mess in Afghanistan, a completely open and broken Border, crime at record levels, oil prices through the roof, inflation rising, and taken advantage of by the entire world —-“
Afghanistan? Maybe that’s a typo.
Are we going to leave behind billions in equipment or start to destroy them from the air. I hate given those bastards MRAPS.
From what I’ve seen, Biden is leaving everything for the Taliban.
No one is asking ‘why’.
It’s pretty clear: Biden is running nothing; rather Maoists like Antia Dunn and corrupt psychos like Susan Rice are. They’ve just given the Chi-Comms military gifts of immense proportions.
China’s graft reach is too great into our nation for us to ever trust our government or schools again. We’re done as a united nation.
“Biden is running nothing.”
That’s pretty well sums things up in a nut shell.
We all know that. But we also know who IS running things: psychopaths like Susan Rice and Anita Dunn.
But hey, aren’t they better than the RINO so-called “uniparty” who would . . . not be doing any of the crazy socialist crap Biden is doing? We all know the GOP would not have cancelled the pipeline, would not have fracked up Afghanistan withdrawal, would not have permitted the open borders that Biden’s minions have weaponized by purposefully shipping Covid-positive illegals to deep red areas.
But yeah, let’s keep not voting for Republicans because who doesn’t love psychopaths like Susan Rice (who is also deeply, truly stupid) and Anita Dunn (who is not at all stupid but is instead deeply, truly evil) running the country. Kick the RINOs to the curb, put known anti-American psychopaths in power instead! That’s a winner for our great country. Or you know, it’s not.
You know the Taliban would love to overrun Kabul while US Embassy (and other countries’ embassies) are trying to evacuate. Sad, but true. The policy “experts” in the Biden admin who are asking, “Please be nice” are being made to look like foots and American lives are going to be lost in the process. And I would not be surprised if they make the US Embassy a de facto headquarters.
Fools
I posted this over at Insty: Wouldn’t it make more sense to just wire the whole dang embassy compound with lots of stuff that makes incendiary booms and have the last person out start the timer so that the whole place (and intel. and equipment) makes a lovely pyre for a whole bunch of taliban/islamic state yahoos?
Not if you’re bribed or extorted to leave everything in place.
Depends on whose side you’re on.
Maybe they can quickly move the corrupt and lunatic LA mayor Eric Garcetti to the US embassy there, instead of India. If they overrun it, no one would miss him.
Biden Chooses Scandal-Plagued L.A. Mayor Garcetti As India Ambassador:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/07/09/biden-chooses-scandal-plagued-la-mayor-garcetti-as-india-ambassador/?sh=f292e7d711f0
The Obama administration’s legacy of world war in the Middle East shifted to central Asia under the Biden administration.
Obama didn’t care one way or the other. He was busy aggrandizing himself at home. Or watching basketball games on tv.
American B-52s are heading to Afghanistan to bomb critical American equipment left there before it falls into Taliban hands:
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/b-52-bombers-head-to-afghanistan/
Never forget that the Biden* regime and its supporters view themselves as the smartest, most compassionate human beings in all of human history.
What a great use of our tax dollars. /sarc
Not the preventing of the Taliban from using the equipment, but rather arranging things so we had to leave it there in the first place.