The Taliban's swift progress through northern Afghanistan continued on Sunday, with the militants capturing more than a dozen districts as foreign soldiers leave the nation.
US President Joe Biden begun the process of evacuating all US troops by September 11, 2021, earlier this year. Trump had agreed with the Taliban to withdraw US troops by May 2021, but Joe Biden, who started office in January, pushed that time back. Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, US forces have been fighting in Afghanistan for nearly two decades.
The US has planned to leave 650 to 1,000 troops in Afghanistan after its final exit is completed to secure the US embassy, Kabul airport, and other vital government buildings. A large portion of remaining foreign forces in Afghanistan have withdrawn ahead of the US deadline of September 11, leaving the Afghan military to handle all national security matters.
Over the recent week, the Taliban has greatly expanded its territorial authority and is closing in on Kabul, the capital. More than 1,000 Afghan soldiers are said to have fled into Tajikistan to avoid a Taliban advance on Monday. According to a US intelligence assessment, once US and other international troops depart, the Afghan government might fall in six months.
With the Taliban seizing control of much of northern Afghanistan in recent weeks, the government now controls only a smattering of provincial capitals that must be largely reinforced and resupplied by air. To avoid the militants, more than 300 Afghan security forces crossed the border into Tajikistan, and the Taliban now control much of Badakhshan and Takhar provinces, far beyond their respective regional capitals. As the Taliban continued to make massive advances across the country, an Afghan government official claimed operations were underway to recover Islam Qala, the primary commercial route between Afghanistan and Iran.
Attacks on provincial capitals by the Taliban are prohibited under the military pullout agreement that the US negotiated with the rebel group last year. During their current attack, the Taliban have stuck to this strategy in order to avoid civilian losses and negative press. Local Taliban commanders, on the other hand, have used their victories to target cities in some instances.
The Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, said the government could handle the situation but that difficulties lay ahead. “What we are witnessing is one of the most complicated stages of the transition,” he said in a speech in Kabul. “Legitimacy is ours; God is with us.
Afghan air and commando troops, the government's backbone of defense, are already overworked as a result of fighting elsewhere in the nation, which is a critical component of the Taliban's strategy to wear them down. The Taliban's military strength hasn't been the only factor in the government forces' demise. Low morale has also played a role, as have local feuds between militia leaders and government officials. Taliban officials claimed control of 85 percent of Afghan territory during a press conference in Moscow on Friday. Officials from the government denounced the figure as part of a propaganda effort.
About a third of Afghanistan's nearly 400 districts are now under Taliban control, and many more are under threat. They have surrounded numerous provincial capitals, from Ghazni City in the east to Maimana in northern Faryab province, despite the fact that they have not yet taken any. The Afghan government has retaken some territory, but it bears little resemblance in contrast to the Taliban's gains. Its new military strategy appears to be to concentrate what forces are left around major cities and population centers.
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