U.S. air strikes target Taliban to slow advance
KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S. military aircraft struck a number of Taliban positions this week in support of faltering Afghan government forces, in one of the first significant American reactions to the insurgents’ blistering advance across Afghanistan as U.S. troops withdraw.
At least one of the strikes was against Taliban positions in the key southern city of Kandahar, slowing an advance that threatened to take over the city.
The Taliban called the strikes “disobedience” to last year’s withdrawal agreement with the Americans, and they warned of unspecified “consequences.”
The scale and pace of the Taliban advance has provoked alarm among top U.S. military and civilian officials in recent days. The Taliban now threaten most of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals and even Kabul, the national capital. The group has overrun more than half of the country’s 400odd districts, in many cases seizing them without a fight, since it began its offensive in earnest in May.
This week’s air strikes, which took place Wednesday and Thursday, reflect both the level of American worry and the Afghan military’s continued need for U.S. air support, as Washington attempts to end nearly 20 years of war in the country.
Afghan forces have been reeling in the face of the Taliban offensive, as the United States nears completion of a pullout of its remaining forces. The United States and other major powers are pushing for a peace deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government, but the Taliban believe they are winning the war, leaving little incentive to negotiate.
Several Pentagon officials confirmed that additional bombing raids around Kandahar and other contested areas are likely in the coming days. “We’ve been doing it where and when feasible, and we’ll keep doing it where and when feasible,” one official said, speaking anonymously to describe operational planning.
The Taliban have said there won’t be peace in Afghanistan until there is a new negotiated government in Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani is removed.
In a recent interview, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, who is also a member of the group’s negotiating team, laid out the insurgents’ stance on what should come next in a country on the precipice.
Shaheen said the Taliban will lay down their weapons when a negotiated government acceptable to all sides in the conflict is installed in Kabul and Ghani’s government is gone.
“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 Afghanistan in the past, were not successful governments,” said Shaheen, apparently including the Taliban’s own fiveyear rule in that assessment.