The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (aka) Taliban

"Every single [provincial] capital is besieged by the Emirate. The Emirate could conquer them as easily as the districts, but then we would want to conquer them in the best way possible, to prevent casualties and destruction, to prevent looting, and to appoint civil servants."

"The first step was to conquer economic borders, the second step will be imposing more economic restrictions through controlling imported foods, petrol and gas."

"The Islamic Emirate asked others to sit down for talks and establish peace, but talks on the forthcoming regime are for establishing a pure Islamic regime."

Mohammad Zahid Himmat, Taliban Commander, Wardak Province

 

"[The Taliban] has a misguided calculation that they can win militarily. Tactical gains in the past couple of months have made them even more arrogant, but the atrocities they committed recently will haunt them."

"They have lost whatever support they had among the people. they have proven again that they are the same old terrorist group."

"We will fight them to our last drop of blood if they believe they will win militarily. If war is what will finally convince the Taliban, we will give them that."

Waheed Omer, senior aide, President Ashraf Ghani 

The Taliban are intensifying attacks across Afghanistan to gain more territory amid NATO's troop withdrawal

"The Taliban are emerging victorious not just in their traditional areas in the south of Afghanistan, like Kandahar or Helmand, but also in northern districts such as Mazar-e-Sharif. The government forces seem to be on the backfoot, while warlords are re-arming to fight the Taliban."

"The Americans gave away far too much in this deal with the Taliban and without anything in return. The Taliban got many concessions but Kabul got nothing. Former US President Donald Trump was in a hurry to end the negotiations as soon as possible and nobody could control him."

"Ghani has not been able to unite the people under a common position of dialogue with the Taliban. The militants know this and that's one of the reasons why they have refused to talk with Ghani so far, and also refused to accept the American plan for the Doha talks and the conference in Turkey."

"As long as the Pakistani military and intelligence continue to give them the sanctuary, there is no need for the Taliban to accept any compromise or any deal or any dialogue with Kabul. Why should they when their leaders are safe and their families are safe? If Pakistan wants to show its sincerity, it needs to immediately force the Taliban leaders to either compromise or leave their sanctuaries in Quetta or in Peshawar."

"Pakistan is pursuing a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand it is trying to promote a peaceful conclusion [of the U.S. presence] and it fears very much an influx of refugees and the chaos that would follow a Taliban takeover. At the same time it is also encouraging the Taliban."

Ahmed Rashid, Pakistani journalist, author

The world knows the brutal Islamist fundamentalist militias once again preparing to lead Afghanistan back to the medieval era as the Taliban; they prefer to speak of themselves as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, taking their rightful rule of the battle-fatigued country where a type of democracy was steadily creeping into place, women liberated halfway to becoming an important part of the country's recovery from the soul-destroying strictures of Islamist sharia law imposed by an earlier iteration of the Taliban's ruinous government.

 

The remorseless killers of Afghan civilians, military, protesters, national police and politicians they despise, feel themselves back in control, just wiping out the last vestiges of Western-inspired governance. They're at the stage now of capturing more territory to claim as their own, of choking off the Afghan government's economy through the control of border crossings with neighbouring nations with which the country trades. And in 'consulting' with the governments of neighbours, establishing their position as future rulers.

 

Taliban leaders are intent on establishing themselves as the 'legitimate' leaders of the country, anxious for international recognition and it appears that Turkey, Iran and Russia are prepared to deal diplomatically with them. "The Taliban see a political settlement, meaning a transfer of power with certain concessions to the government but they can't be trusted", pointed out Hussain Haqqani, former Pakistan ambassador to the U.S., now with the Hudson Institute.

 

There was no training given to Afghan soldiers when the U.S. closed the airbases in Kandahar and Bagram, to enable them to maintain the equipment gifted to them by the U.S., Afghan officials and military experts pointing to the situation as a critical advantage lost with the return to the U.S. of thousands of logistics contractors who had maintained the air and ground weapons systems -- in joining the departure of the thousands of U.S. and NATO coalition soldiers from Afghanistan. 

President Biden's pledge to support the Afghan forces with funding and delivering Black Hawk helicopters is a feel-good move for his administration; its practical results for a flailing Afghan military will soon enough be assessed as the entire country falls to the Taliban. Afghan President Ghani who cut ties with the influential Afghan warlords now is in desperate need of their help as the former forces behind the Northern Alliance.

 

A recycling shop near the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan after American soldiers abandoned the country in the dead of the night without informing Afghan officials.  Adek Berry/AFP via Getty

"The irony is that Ghani's survival depends on the Northern Alliance, which he has worked so hard to dismantle. He seems to be unable to compromise, isolated and in denial about the situation around him", remarked Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, associate professor of international affairs at University of Pittsburgh, of the coalition of militias who had ousted the past Taliban regime. In the face of the relentless violence of the Taliban, a negotiated political settlement is beyond remote.

India, staunchly opposed to the Taliban as a proxy of Pakistan, confirmed they opened talks with the Islamists, even while President Ghani accuses Pakistan of allowing ten thousand jihadis to pass over the border to give assistance to the Taliban, accusing Islamabad of failing to place pressure on Islamists to agree to peace talks. "Afghanistan is under a full-scale invasion of Talib terrorists who have an organized backing and sponsorship in Pakistan ... They have no intention to engage in meaningful negotiations", added Vice-President Amrullah Saleh.

Islamabad continues to claim it has no influence on the Taliban, even as the U.S. accuses it of playing a "double game", harbouring terrorists. But then, Pakistan was doing that back when the U.S. was praising it for being so helpful in the war against terror, naming Pakistan its great partner in the battle against al-Qaeda, even while it gave haven in Abbottabad next to an elite Pakistani military garrison, to Osama bin Laden in his private incognito compound. 

Al-Qaeda has its firm presence in fifteen provinces in Afghanistan, according to a July UN Security Council report. Operating under Taliban protection in Kandahar, Helmand and Nimruz provinces, fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan joining it. It has aligned with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement in Xinjiang, China. Its Pakistan Taliban counterpart Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan is once again restive and Pakistan's Interagency Intelligence group may yet grapple again with the monster they created. 

"Everybody's lost leverage over the Taliban. Everybody now needs to invest fully in trying to see if we can get to some, even imperfect, arrangement that would allow this protracted conflict to be warded off", offered Moeed Yusuf, Pakistan's national security adviser. Should Kabul collapse, neighbouring countries have reason to fear a protracted civil war would again attract extremists. But home-grown Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan has launched cross-border attacks even while ISIL expands its presence with sleeper cells around Kabul.

 

Bagram, at the foot of the Hindu Kush mountains, has a long history as an army base. The Soviet army used the base during its invasion in 1979. Many feared that when the Americans left, Bagram would fall into Taliban hands — a strategic victory for the Islamists

"I don't think the Taliban are a terrorist movement but they have relations, friendships, and shared a common goal of removing the U.S. Terrorist organizations will have latitude, some of the Taliban will be perfectly happy to turn a blind eye."

"The most painful moment is yet to come. It could be Kabul falling, maybe it is that Saigon moment of a helicopter going with people trying to escape, maybe it is executions."

"The most painful thing would be a terrorist attack on the United States."

Carter Malkasian, author: The American War in Afghanistan

Abandoning The "Forever-War"

"I want to be clear: the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan continues through the end of August."

"[The U.S. would continue] to speak out for the rights of women and girls [Taliban advance through Afghanistan notwithstanding]."

"I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome. The United States cannot afford to remain tethered to policies created in response to the world as it was twenty years ago."

"They [the Afghan military] have the capacity, they have the forces, they have the equipment. The question is: will they do it?"

U.S. President Joe Biden

"We will take all measures so that Islamic State will not operate on Afghan territory… and our territory will never be used against our neighbours."

"[Y]ou and the entire world community have probably recently learned that 85% of the territory of Afghanistan has come under the control [of the Taliban]."

Taliban official Shahabuddin Delawar

Mohammad Naim, Mawlawi Shahabudding Delawar and Suhil Shaheen, members of a political delegation from the Taliban, attend a news conference in Moscow, Russia, on July 9, 2021.

"Claiming territory or claiming ground doesn’t mean you can sustain that or keep it over time."

"And so I think it’s really time for the Afghan forces to get into the field – and they are in the field – and to defend their country, their people."

"They’ve got the capacity, they’ve got the capability. Now it’s time to have that will."

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby 

The capacity in numbers and military advantages such as air power, the capability in training but sadly, the will appears to be lacking; dissipating swiftly as Western allies depart and the Taliban not even waiting until the country is entirely clear of the presence of foreign military personnel, and seemingly discounting the potential of a reversal in departure in favour of aiding the government of Afghanistan and its clearly befuddled military, mounting a swift and ultimately irreversible capture of those parts of the country they have not already taken under their rule.

 

Not only are Afghan civilians in proximity to newly-captured Taliban territory swiftly becoming refugees as they flee in their tens of thousands to urban areas, in anticipation of their lives being impacted in ways they have no wish to return to, but so too are hundreds of Afghan security personnel crossing in haste over the border into neighbouring Iran and Tajikistan. Keenly and with no little discomfort, regional capitals from Moscow on to other foreign capitals are watching this drama unfold in real time with concerns over the potential for radical Islamists infiltrating Central Asia.

 

There are some reassuring moments, as when a prominent warlord known as an anti-Taliban commander pledged to support the Afghan forces in their determination to take back control of portions of western Afghanistan that includes a border crossing with Iran. Widely known as the Lion of Herat Mohammad Ismail Khan urged Afghan civilians to become involved, claiming that hundreds of armed civilians from Ghor, Badghis, Nimroz, Farah, Helmand and Kandahar provinces had approached him, prepared to fill the security gap foreign forces' withdrawal has created. 

An Afghan army soldier walks past Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAP) that were left after the American military left Bagram air base, in Parwan province north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, July 5.

To President Biden's assertion that the U.S. had achieved its mission, that it was not the responsibility of the United States to remain in Afghanistan longer than the two decades it has already sacrificed to aid the country, that the government of Afghanistan must itself build a secure Afghanistan....scant comfort for the government of that forlorn country that the U.S. under President Biden would continue to "speak out for the rights of women and girls", rights scheduled to become dim memories in short order. But it is undeniably, Afghanistan's duty to itself to defend itself.

Assurances from the American President that his country was prepared to help the Afghan defence forces from afar in the maintenance of their air force mean little in the fact of the reality that the planes are U.S. planes, and all the American contractors that keep them in flying condition left with their military.. And that the U.S. remains committed to the provision of civilian and humanitarian aid -- minus a physical presence. It was time, he stressed, for other countries in the region to step up to offer help to its neighbor. The inevitability of the Taliban once again taking over the country is not foreordained, he insisted.

 

Afghan security forces keep watch after the American military left Bagram air base, in Parwan province north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, July 5, 2021. The U.S. left Afghanistan's Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years, winding up its "forever war," in the night, without notifying the new Afghan commander until more than two hours after they slipped away. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

 

After all, the Taliban has no air force, and Afghanistan's total military forces are greater in number than that of the Taliban fighting their asymmetrical type of guerilla warfare. A confident assurance that somehow fails to comfort those to whom it is directed. Courage cannot be conferred by decree. The U.S. Administration had considered temporarily relocating some 9,000 Afghans viewed as being at high risk for reprisals for their role in aiding U.S. forces, by sending them to three Central Asian nations for processing.

To date, 2,500 Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans known to have cooperated with American forces have been approved, almost 50 percent of which have gone unused by those eligible to take advantage of them. The withdrawal date was stepped up from September to late August, an event that would highlight the completion of the longest war America has ever invested itself in. Only a small contingent would be left in the country to provide protection for U.S. diplomats, in a best-possible scenario. 

Close to $1 trillion in treasury was spent in Afghanistan, the "graveyard of empires". There were 2,448 U.S. service members who lost their lives in Afghanistan, with another 21,000 wounded. As for the many Afghan civilians who were employed or somehow linked with foreign and American diplomatic missions and translators for the foreign military, the U.S. is on the lookout for countries to receive thousands of Afghans who worked for the U.S. military, to provide haven.

 

"Afghans who worked with foreign troops or embassies face huge risks of retaliation from the Taliban", asserted associate Asia director Patricia Gossman, of Human Rights Watch, calling on countries involved in Afghanistan to "urgently accelerate" visa processing and relocation for Afghan interpreters and other employees (along with their families).

Blast walls and a few buildings can be seen at the Bagram air base after the American military left.