The Afghan forces alone cannot be blamed for the fall of Kunduz; there were other factors at play. In most places, the troops remained besieged within the district capitals, while the Taliban ruled the countryside
The fall of Kunduz, an important city in northern Afghanistan, on Monday, was more a defeat for Afghanistan’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation -trained Afghan Army than a victory for the Taliban. A report under the heading, ‘Taliban Fighters Capture Kunduz City as Afghan Forces Retreat’, by Joseph Goldstein and Mujib Mashal in The New York Times of September 29, quoted a security official as saying on the condition of anonymity, that the Taliban numbered 500 in the city, and mentioned a district Governor, Mr Zalmai Farooqi, as estimating that the Government had 7,000 men in the area. The problem was not the lack of security forces, Mr Farooqi stated, but the absence of good leadership.
For over a year, the Taliban had been slowly spreading their tentacles in Kunduz Province, of which the city of Kunduz is the capital. The New York Times report cited above quoted Mr Mohammad Yousaf Abyoubi, head of Kunduz’s Provincial Council, as saying that the Taliban controlled 70 per cent of the Province outside the city. Yet, he added that the Government neither launched an offensive nor sent in reinforcements.
It was not that the Government in Kabul and the United States’ military in Afghanistan did not know. For a year, The New York Times report states, local officials had been expressing alarm over the Taliban’s advance but some Afghan and Western officials had been dismissing these.
Typical of their complacence/ignorance was a remark in May, by the American commander in Afghanistan, General John F Campbell, quoted in Joseph Goldstein’s report in The New York Times (September 30) under the heading “A Taliban Prize, Won in a Few Hours after Years of Strategy.” The General, according to it, had said in response to a question about the Talban’s military strategy, “If you take a look very closely at some of the things in Kunduz and up in Badakhshan, they will attack some very small checkpoints.” He added, “They will go out and hit a little bit and then they kind of go to ground” and then said, “so they’re not gaining territory for the most part.”
One should hardly be surprised, if all this had convinced the defenders that they had little chance of receiving help and reinforcement and, hence, there was no point in their sticking their necks out. As a result, the local police fought the Taliban in some places, in the others, the latter advanced unopposed. Otherwise, Afghans, known for their courage in combat, would not have fled. The point needs to be made because they have showed much better mettle elsewhere.
Consider the case of Kabul, where the Taliban mounted three attacks on August 7. The targets were the Ministry of Defence’s military intelligence headquarters, the Kabul Police Academy’s training facility, and an American and coalition forces military base, camp integrity, just north of Kabul’s international airport. While the attacks, which left 65 dead and 240 wounded, provided an alarming example of the Taliban’s striking power, it also showed the Afghan forces in a favourable light.
In none of the three instances could the Taliban breach the defended perimeters. The casualties occurred mostly outside and, besides one American soldier and eight military contractors and Afghan police cadets, they were civilians, mainly passer-by.
The attacks, however, raised certain questions. The fact that the Taliban could breach Kabul’s outer security ring and strike at the Ministry of Defence’s military intelligence headquarters and the Kabul Police Academy’s training facility, suggests possible internal complicity without which, these could not have happened. It is not just the Kabul attacks. How is it that the Afghan forces, which had a bad year in 2014, when they suffered heavy casualties, have fared worse since the beginning of this yearIJ
In most places, they have remained besieged within the district capitals — rarely venturing out for patrolling — while the Taliban have increasingly dominated the countryside. One cannot blame the troops alone. Joseph Goldstein’s report under the heading, ‘Afghan Security Forces Struggle Just to Maintain Stalemate’, in The New York Times of July 22, quotes a retired Afghan lieutenant General, Abdul Hadi Khalid as saying, “Units get surrounded, and we don’t send them support, so they are killed.”
lieutenant General Khalid’s statement underlines the general disarray in Afghanistan’s military establishment. logistics are poor. Soldiers are often unable to send money home from their pay. Medical supplies are in short supply; reinforcements seldom arrive.
The resultant demoralisation is heightened by the fact that air support, which played a major role when American troops were deployed, is now very rarely received. It is one thing to argue the that Taliban have been gaining ground without ever having it, and another to expect troops used to heavy air support when they fought alongside Western coalition forces, to do virtually without it now.
Such a state of affairs appears hardly strange on recalling that Afghanistan has not had a confirmed Defence Minister for about a year now. The incumbent, Mr Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, serves in an acting capacity as the effort to confirm him was defeated by the Afghan Parliament on July 4, when he received 84 votes against 107 required. Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani’s persistence with Mr Stanekzai, a close confidante, whose performance as Defence Minister has by no account been effective, has been a source of tension, as has been his policy toward the Taliban and Pakistan.
He has sent officer cadets to train in Pakistan, shared information with it and helped hunt down Pakistani terrorists who had taken refuge in Afghanistan, including six involved in the horrific attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16, 2014. Pakistan has given nothing in return.
President Ghani’s reported willingness to undertake constitutional amendments that would guarantee the Taliban a share of power, and give its clerics the authority to roll back progressive features of the country’s post 9/11 life, has alarmed Afghanistan’s ethnic minorities inhabiting its northern and western regions that had led the resistance to the Taliban before 9/11— as well as youth and women’s groups. These have also raised questions about his seriousness about fighting the Taliban, which in turn is stoking the fear of an inevitable eventual Taliban take-over of Afghanistan and undermining the military and civilian administration’s resolve to defeat the Pakistan-sponsored and supported militia.
Can Mr Ghani be made to change his policiesIJ Can a more widely-accepted and competent leader replace himIJ Can the Afghan military pull up its socksIJ What will be the United States’ role after KunduzIJ A great deal will depend on answers to these questions.