“From Kabul to Kandahar”: nothing you've been told about the last months/days of the #Taliban takeover reflects what was going on, on the gorund. (subscribers, September 2021) // mondediplo.com/9839
French public intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy (BHL) said on French TV, mid August, about the Taliban: 'These soldiers on motorbikes ... aren’t a formidable army...I was on the ground some time ago....The Taliban were not eating away at power. They’d gone to ground.’
"How is it possible, after so many years, to be so wrong about the insurgency’s strategic effectiveness? "
"Far from being unimportant, it was motorbikes that enabled the Taliban to weave through traffic jams and accomplish their missions, which led to a motorbike ban in most towns. A week before Kandahar fell, it was the opposite of BHL’s description."
"The Afghan government systematically hid the scale of its own combat losses." Main Afghan media followed unquestionably...
"a source close to the regime told the #US magazine Foreign Policy there may have been 5,000 losses a month. Not only did some of the #Afghan military fight; they took a lot of punishment, contrary to the familiar view of TV pundits."
‘All these districts didn’t fall so quickly through some miracle. People were exhausted living under the government’s warlords... (In) 75 mainly rural districts (controlled by the Taliban), services as good as, and sometimes better than, those of the government, (were provided)"
Low on ammunition & food, "the vast majority of the 180,000 soldiers & 100,000 paramilitaries... (of) the Afghan armed forces laid down their arms. The Afghan min of def & its spokesmen, meanwhile, daily announced far-fetched estimates of how many 100s of Taliban had been killed"
"Before attacking the cities, the insurgents (Taliban) isolated the country, severing communication routes between urban centres, then taking over most of Afghanistan’s 30 border posts, thereby depriving the gov of a revenue source and taking control of supplies, especially food"
"While gov forces were engaged in intense fighting in the south around Kandahar & Helmand, Taliban fighters conquered the north. By doing so before the Northern Alliance... could re-form, they killed off any hope of a counter-offensive from historically hostile provinces..
"When the Taliban advanced on Kabul, the army and police, though numerous, did not know what to do. Their leaders provided no leadership. ‘What’s happening in Doha?’ one army officer asked on the eve of the surrender, on WhatsApp, from his office at the defence ministry."
"When they reached the gates of Kabul on 15 August, the Taliban initially said they would not enter the city. But meeting no opposition, and aware that President Ashraf Ghani had fled, they took control of the capital."
"Ahmad Massoud... seems to have replaced his father in Parisian circles, but has not prevented Afghanistan’s disaster. He has returned to his valley to re-entrench... His entourage boast that he has 20,000 men ready to fight, an empty claim that no one expects to see fulfilled."
Most warlords have fled while the rest, few, are jockeying for positions and crumbs of power in the Taliban led Afghanistan.
"While these figures fight over crumbs of power, a whole section of the population is desperately seeking a way to escape the anticipated terror of a new Taliban regime."
"For many Afghans, exile is the only way out. Those who have worked for the government or foreign forces are certain their lives are in danger and the promised amnesty is a trick."
"Those with means have already left. Politicians and militia leaders have almost all sent their families abroad."
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