Taliban gain as soldiers surrender

• Besieged Afghan officials in the southern province of Oruzgan said Sunday that scores of regular Afghan soldiers had surrendered during the past week to the Taliban.

The latest case involved 41 national army soldiers who surrendered and turned over the Mashal base in Chora District to the insurgents, according to Dost Mohammad Nayab, the spokesman for the province’s governor.

He said it was the third Afghan army post in the province to surrender to the Taliban during the past week, amid reports of significant surrenders in Kunduz and Helmand provinces as well.

The Taliban have taken more territory in Afghanistan this year than at any time in their 15-year struggle against the Western- supported Afghan government, according to United Nations data. At the same time, the Afghan military has suffered declining numbers and high attrition rates.

Oruzgan province has been under siege for nearly two months, with its capital city, Tirin Kot, nearly falling to the i nsurgents four times, according to the provincial governor, Abdul Karim Karimi. There have been numerous defections by Afghan police officers in Oruzgan, with 20 outposts abandoned in September and many of the officers suspected of changing sides, the governor said.

But the better-trained and - equipped Afghan military has proved more cohesive than the police, which makes the recent surrenders worrisome.

“The government is unable to provide supply by air and the soldiers in the bases are stuck without even enough food, so finally they are surrendering to the Taliban,” Nayab said.

A spokesman for the Afghan Defence Ministry, Dawlat Waziri, confirmed that the Mashal base had been captured by the Taliban, but denied that any Afghan soldiers had surrendered.

According to a report Sunday issued to the U. S. Congress, the Afghan military’s uniformed forces declined by 2,199 in the third quarter of 2016, leaving the army at 86.8 per cent of its authorized military strength of about 170,000. Attrition in the military, caused by rising casualties, declining reenlistments and desertions, was at 33.5 per cent annually as of August 2016, the report said — an increase of five per cent over the previous year.