3,000 U.S. troops heading to Kabul
WASHINGTON — Just weeks before the U.S. is scheduled to end its war in Afghanistan, the Biden administration is rushing 3,000 fresh troops to the Kabul airport to help with a partial evacuation of the U.S. Embassy. The move highlights the speed of a Taliban takeover of much of the country, including their capture on Thursday of Kandahar, the second-largest city and the birthplace of the Taliban movement.
The State Department said the embassy will continue functioning, but Thursday’s dramatic decision to send in thousands of additional U.S. troops is a sign of waning confidence in the Afghan government’s ability to hold off the Taliban surge. The announcement was made just hours after the Taliban captured the western city of Herat as well as Ghazni, a strategic provincial capital
south of Kabul. The advance, and the partial U.S. Embassy evacuation, increasingly isolate the nation’s capital, home to millions of Afghans.
“This is not abandonment. This is not an evacuation. This is not a wholesale withdrawal,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said. “What this is is a reduction in the size of our civilian footprint.”
Price rejected the idea that Thursday’s moves sent encouraging signals to an already emboldened Taliban, or demoralizing ones to frightened Afghan civilians. “The message we are sending to the people of Afghanistan is one of enduring partnership,” Price insisted.
President Joe Biden, who has remained adamant about ending the U.S. mission in Afghanistan at the end of this month despite the Taliban sweep, conferred with senior national security officials overnight, then gave the order for the additional temporary troops Thursday morning.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke Thursday with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. The U.S. also warned Taliban officials directly that the U.S. would respond if the Taliban attacked Americans during the temporary U.S. military deployments.
Price said diplomatic work will continue at the Kabul embassy.
“Our first responsibility has always been protecting the safety and the security of our citizens serving in Afghanistan, and around the world,” Price said at a briefing, calling the the speed of the Taliban advance and resulting instability “of grave concern.”
Shortly before Price’s announcement, the embassy in Kabul urged U.S. citizens to leave immediately — reiterating a warning it first issued Saturday. As of Thursday, there were roughly 4,200 employees at the embassy, but most of those are Afghans, according to the State Department.
Apart from a complete evacuation and shuttering of the embassy, Price said other contingency plans were being weighed, including possibly moving its operations to the airport.
NOT COMBAT
The Pentagon’s chief spokesman, John Kirby, declined to call the deployment a combat mission, but said soldiers and Marines will deploy with their full complement of weapons and authorization to defend themselves if attacked.
Kirby, said that in addition to sending three infantry battalions — two from the Marine Corps and one from the Army, all already deployed in the region — to the airport, the Pentagon will dispatch 3,500 to 4,000 troops from a combat brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division to Kuwait to act as a reserve force.
Also, about 1,000 Army and Air Force troops, including military police and medical personnel, will be sent to Qatar in coming days to support a State Department effort to accelerate its processing of Special Immigrant Visa applications from Afghans who once worked for the U.S. government and feel threatened by the Taliban, Kirby said.
The new troops, who will reinforce about 650 troops left as diplomatic security at the embassy and the airport, are not to get involved in the Afghan government’s war with the Taliban, Kirby said.
“This is a temporary mission with a narrow focus,” he told reporters at the Pentagon.
MORE CITIES FALL
The decision to reinforce embassy security was made as the Taliban captured Kandahar and Herat, the country’s second- and third-largest cities, and the strategic provincial capital of Ghazni on Thursday.
The seizure of Kandahar and Herat marks the biggest prizes yet for the Taliban, who have taken 12 of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals as part of a weeklong blitz.
The capture of Ghazni, meanwhile, cuts off a crucial highway linking the Afghan capital, Kabul, with the country’s southern provinces.
While Kabul itself isn’t directly under threat yet, the losses and the battles elsewhere further tighten the grip of a resurgent Taliban.
Thousands of Afghans have fled their homes over fears the Taliban will again impose a brutal, repressive government, all but eliminating women’s rights and conducting public amputations, stonings and executions. Peace talks in Qatar remain stalled, though diplomats met throughout the day.
The latest U.S. military intelligence assessment suggests Kabul could come under insurgent pressure within 30 days and that, if current trends hold, the Taliban could gain full control of the country within a few months.
The onslaught represents a stunning collapse of Afghan forces and renews questions about where the over $830 billion spent by the U.S. Defense Department on fighting, training troops and reconstruction efforts went — especially as Taliban fighters ride on American-made Humvees and pickups with M-16s slung across their shoulders.
Afghan security forces and the government have not responded to repeated questions from journalists over the days of fighting, instead issuing video communiques that downplay the Taliban advance.
Herat had been under militant attack for two weeks, with one wave blunted by the arrival of warlord Ismail Khan and his forces. But Thursday afternoon, Taliban fighters broke through the city’s defensive lines and later said they were in control.
Afghan lawmaker Semin Barekzai also acknowledged the city’s fall, saying that some officials there had escaped.
It wasn’t immediately clear what happened to Khan, who earlier had been described as under attack with his forces at a government building.
In Kandahar, the Taliban seized the governor’s office and other buildings, witnesses said. The governor and other officials fled the onslaught, catching a flight to Kabul, the witnesses added. They declined to be named publicly as the defeat has yet to be acknowledged by the government.
Ghazni provincial council member Amanullah Kamrani alleged that the provincial governor and police chief made a deal with the Taliban to flee after surrendering. Taliban video and photos purported to show the governor’s convoy freely passing by insurgents as part of the deal.
Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Mirwais Stanekzai later said the governor and his deputies had been arrested over that alleged deal. The officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
A senior Interior Ministry official said the Taliban runs a recruitment team that reaches out to Afghan officials, pushing them to join the militants.
“One of the main reasons we lost so much ground is the cooperation of officials with the Taliban,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose such information to the news media.
“We suspect a long list of governors who might have Taliban ties.”
“This is not abandonment. This is not an evacuation. This is not a wholesale withdrawal. What this is is a reduction in the size of our civilian footprint.” — Ned Price, State Department spokesman
TALKING TO TALIBAN
U.S. negotiators are trying to extract assurances from the Taliban that they will not attack the U.S. Embassy in Kabul if the militants overrun the capital, two U.S. officials said.
The effort, led by the special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, seeks to stave off an evacuation of the embassy as the fighters rapidly seize cities across the country.
Khalilzad is hoping to convince Taliban leaders that the embassy must remain open, and secure, if the group hopes to receive U.S. financial aid and other assistance as part of a future Afghan government. The Taliban leadership has said it wants to be seen as a legitimate steward of the country, and is seeking relations with other global powers, including Russia and China, in part to receive economic support.
Price declined to comment Wednesday but said funding would be conditioned on whether future Afghan governments would “have any semblance of durability.”
“Legitimacy bestows, and essentially is the ticket, to the levels of international assistance, humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people,” Price said.
BRITISH TROOPS ON WAY
Britain said Thursday that it will send around 600 troops to Afghanistan to help U.K. citizens leave the country as concerns grow about the security situation.
In a statement, the defense ministry said the troops will provide protection and logistical support for the relocation of Britons where required.
Around 4,000 British citizens are believed to be in Afghanistan.
The ministry said troops also will help speed up efforts to swiftly relocate interpreters and other Afghan staff members who worked alongside U.K. forces in Afghanistan.
The additional forces are expected to arrive in Kabul “over the coming days” and will be deployed on a shortterm basis, the ministry statement said.
The number of workers at the British Embassy in Kabul has been cut to a core team focused on providing consular and visa services for those needing to rapidly leave the country.
“The security of British nationals, British military personnel and former Afghan staff is our first priority,” Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said. “We must do everything we can to ensure their safety.”
Information for this article was contributed by Robert Burns, Matthew Lee, Ellen Knickmeyer, Tameem Akhgar, Rahim Faiez, Jon Gambrell, Hamed Sarfarazi and Kirsten Grieshaber of The Associated Press; by Lara Jakes of The New York Times and by Missy Ryan, Dan Lamothe, Ezzatullah Mehrdad, Susannah George, Karen DeYoung, Anne Gearan and John Hudson of The Washington Post.