I think it’s time for a thread looking at the overall strategic situation in Afghanistan. 
Why? Because there seems to be some sort of narrative that the Taliban are going to win and the government is useless
This sort of stuff from the Americans @CENTCOM who should really know better.
“strategic momentum is currently with the Taliban”
“strategic momentum is currently with the Taliban”
Well I’m not so sure about that
As I’ve said before - I don’t think the north was about Taliban brilliance, rather government repositioning to strategic areas, and admittedly government weakness in some areas.
https://twitter.com/threshedthought/status/1415817523337957381
Badakshan especially was a disaster
https://twitter.com/isaacchangezi/status/1411548271538024450
But, you know what, after grabbing control of a few districts, the Taliban have lost momentum.
They can’t take Kandahar. Local militias and US air support have seen to that.
https://twitter.com/threshedthought/status/1417936944600780800
And Ismail Khan in Herat has once again stepped up. He has a lot of loyal followers. Herat will not fall as long as he is alive.
https://twitter.com/threshedthought/status/1418721560223916034
What about Kabul?
There’s a lot of international attention there and lots of weapons are being moved in. Strong rumours the Indians are getting involved in defence of Kabul and we can expect US SOF to be involved as well.
So I think Kabul is safe.
The Taliban can try Jalalabad but that’s pretty pro-government and the echoes of 1989 are strong.
So the Taliban control a lot of dust and the government controls the cities.
Don’t mistake this as a defence of the gov - I think a lot of their security forces and especially allied militias are war criminals.
And most Afghans don’t want bullshit Taliban rule either.
But the government will not fall and the Americans and the international media are calling this wrong (the US esp should know better as they’ve just resumed air strikes which is a big strategic move).
Finally Afghan history teaches us that fighting coalitions tend to stick together when they are winning and they tend to drift apart when bogged down or losing. Watch this space as the ‘Taliban’ fragment.
And I think the Taliban in Doha are realising this.
And they have been receiving strong messages from the Chinese and Pakistanis that forceful takeover of Afg is not the way forward.
And so they come out with statements like this:
And so they come out with statements like this:
“I want to make it clear that we do not believe in the monopoly of power because any governments who (sought) to monopolize power in Afg in the past, were not successful governments,” said @suhailshaheen1, apparently including the Taliban’s own 5-year rule in that assessment.
So there we have it. Two fractured coalitions, just about holding together, now edging towards talks, hopefully supported by the wider region.
We are not yet at the beginning of the end, but perhaps we are at the end of the beginning.
We are not yet at the beginning of the end, but perhaps we are at the end of the beginning.
As ever if you’d like to read more, check out my book, with a massive discount:
https://twitter.com/ThreshedThought/status/1416543232754733057
Or this one, with a slightly smaller discount (25%):
https://twitter.com/threshedthought/status/1417337490386472966
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