Taliban sweep forces consulates’ closure; 90% US pullback is over
Ater US troops withdrew without notifying them, Afghan soldiers guarding Bagram base have been let with thousands of Taliban prisoners and a certainty that the enemy will atack
KABUL: A surge of Taliban wins in northern Afghanistan has caused some countries to close their north Afghan consulates, while across the border in Tajikistan reservists are being called up to reinforce its southern border, according to officials and reports on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan is more than 90 per cent completed, the Pentagon’s Central Command announced on Tuesday.
Centcom said it had officially handed over seven former US bases to the Afghan security forces and had evacuated the equivalent of nearly 1,000 C-17 air freighter loads of equipment from the country, ahead of the September deadline to complete the pullout.
Tuesday’s announcement underscored that most of the process of withdrawing US military and civilian personnel ordered by President Joe Biden in April had been completed.
The United States is expected to keep a reported 650 or more military personnel in the country to protect the US embassy and diplomats.
Nearly 1,000 Afghan soldiers have fled the Taliban advances by crossing the border into Tajikistan, according to reports from Tajikistan.
A statement from the Tajik government said President Emomali Rakhmon has ordered the mobilisation of 20,000 military reservists to strengthen its border with Afghanistan.
The Afghan military exodus comes as Taliban overrun most districts in northeastern Badakhshan province. Many of the districts collapsed without a fight but along the province’s northern border with Tajikistan, hundreds of Afghan National Security and Defence Forces crossed the border seeking safety.
The consulates of Turkey and Russia have reportedly closed in Mazar-e-sharif, the capital of northern Balkh province, and Afghanistan’s fourth-largest city. Iran said it has restricted activities at its consulate in the city. There has been fighting in Balkh province, but the provincial capital has been relatively peaceful.
Germany has closed its consulate general in Mazar-e-sharif, a diplomat said on Tuesday.
The last German troops, who had been based in a sprawling military camp on the fringes of Mazar-e-sharif, let the country last week. The consulate general was also situated on the base since a 2016 suicide atack severely damaged the building in Mazar-e-sharif that originally housed the representation.
The consulates of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, India and Pakistan have reduced their services, Balkh provincial governor’s spokesman Munir Farhad said on Tuesday. He said Turkey and Russia had closed their consulates and their diplomats had let the city.
The Tajik government said Afghan troops were being allowed to cross on humanitarian grounds but the border posts on the Tajik side were in control of Tajik forces and there was no fighting with Taliban from the Tajik side.
REJOIN TO FIGHT: Afghan security personnel who fled into Tajikistan are being brought back to rejoin the fight against Taliban insurgents, Afghanistan’s national security adviser said, and some 2,300 who abandoned positions across the country had returned to service.
“Those that went to Tajikistan are coming back and are once again going to be in the service of the people and in the defence of Faizabad,” National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib said in a news briefing on Tuesday.
26 DISTRICTS SEIZED: Faizabad is the capital of the northern province of Badakhshan, which borders Tajikistan, from where the Afghan servicemen had fled on Sunday ater the Taliban made rapid territorial gains.
Insurgents have seized 26 of the province’s 28 districts, according to a local parliamentarian — three of them without a fight.
Mohib did not provide details on when or how the Afghan security personnel would be brought back.
The Taliban march gains momentum only days ater the United States vacated Bagram Airfield, just an hours drive north of the capital and a sure sign that the majority of its troops had let Afghanistan.
The US withdrew from what had been the epicentre of the Us-led coalition’s nearly 20year war in Afghanistan by s huting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base’s new Afghan commander, who discovered the Americans’ departure more than two hours ater they let, according Afghan military officials said.
The Taliban have made relentless territorial wins since mid-april, when President Joe Biden announced the last 2,500-3,500 US soldiers and 7,000 allied na to soldiers would leave afghanistan.
Most have let quietly already, well before the announced deadline in September. The full withdrawal is not expected to be completed until the end of August while agreements to protect Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport are setled.
Meanwhile, the months-old peace talks being held in Qatar between Taliban and a fractious Afghan government have all but stopped even as both sides say they want a negotiated end to the decades-long conflict.
Ater American troops withdrew without notifying them, Afghan soldiers guarding the Bagram Air Base have been let with thousands of Taliban prisoners and a certainty that the enemy will atack.
The sprawling military complex was at one point home to tens of thousands of US and allied soldiers, and one of the most important sites to prosecute the two-decade war in Afghanistan.
But the last of the American soldiers quietly let the base last week, effectively completing their withdrawal from Afghanistan and leaving a massive security vacuum that the Afghan military will struggle to fill.
The new commander of the Bagram base, General Mirassadullah Kohistani, spoke candidly about the challenges ahead, as reporters were given a tour of the largely deserted base.
“You know, if we compare ourselves with the Americans, it’s a big difference,” Kohistani said, admiting his forces could not be as “powerful” as the Americans.
“But according to our capabilities... we are trying to do the best and as much as possible secure and serve all the people.”
The lack of a clear handover or transition plan appears to have made the task even more challenging.
Kohistani said he only knew of the foreign forces’ exit ater they had let.
“We did not know of their timeline for departure. They did not tell us when they let.”
Just 50 kilometres from Kabul, the base is key to the security of the capital while also providing strategic cover to much of the country’s rugged north where the Taliban have focused their recent offensives.
Kohistani insists his troops can hold the base from the Taliban, and that he has “quite enough” soldiers.
Though, with roughly 3,000 troops under his command, the figure is a tiny percentage of the number of American and allied forces during its Us-led heyday.
For American troops, morale was kept up in the then-buzzing mini-city with swimming pools, cinemas, spas and fast food outlets of Burger King and Pizza Hut.
For Kohistani’s men, the entertainment venues are closed, the warehouses are locked and the shutered dining facilities offer only the stench of roten food from boxes of expired meal packs.
In a more concrete sign of the Afghan military’s ability to fight without American backing, 1,000 troops fighting the Taliban in the country’s north fled into neighbouring Tajikistan on Monday.
At Bagram, Kohistani said he was already receiving reports that the Taliban were making “movements in rural areas” surrounding the area.
One soldier, a private named Rafiullah, offered a clear picture of what he expected would come.
“The enemy are determined and will definitely try to atack here,” Rafiullah said as behind him two Afghan military helicopters took off.
“But we will not give them the chance.” If or when the Taliban do mount an offensive to take Bagram, one of their top priorities will undoubtedly be a huge prison that holds up to 5,000 Taliban inmates.
“We haven’t come here to sleep. Everybody here is prepared to secure Bagram. Our morale is high,” insisted Rafiullah.
Another soldier also defiantly said he was ready to fight the Taliban, but nevertheless signalled a feeling of unease with a lack of firepower and leadership.
“We will not surrender but we need weapons and strong backing from our leaders,” he said.
If the Taliban do wrest control of Bagram, it will repeat a patern of modern history reflecting the nation’s power struggles.
The airfield was first built by the Americans for its Afghan ally during the Cold War in the 1950s.
The Soviet Union vastly expanded it ater the Red Army invaded Afghanistan in 1979.
Ater their withdrawal, the base was controlled by the Moscow-backed government, and later by the shaky mujahideen administration during the 1990s civil war.
It was reported that at one point the Taliban controlled one end of the three-kilometre runway, and the opposition Northern Alliance the other.
Bagram ultimately fell into the Taliban’s hands ater they overran large swathes of the country in the mid-1990s.