Turkey (Washington Insider Magazine) -The Taliban have taken the 10th provincial capital of Afghanistan in the latest conquest from a weeklong advance following a soon-to-end withdrawal by U.S.-led forces from the country. Ghazni, which fell to the Taliban on Aug. 12, is a provincial capital strategically important as a main road between the south and Kabul.
There are 34 provincial capitals in Afghanistan, and this places almost a third of them under Taliban control. Recent U.S. intelligence reports suggest that the militant group could take Kabul within 90 days. As the fighting intensified, President Ashraf Ghani flew earlier this week to the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif to rally pro-government troops. As of Aug. 11, he fired the country’s army chief Gen. Wali Mohammad Ahmadzai, who had started the role in June.
The U.S. toppled the combined Al-Qaeda-Taliban regime, which the United Nations had labeled as a joint terrorist entity, in 2001 after the Al-Qaeda attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in September of that year. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in May 2011 in a special operations mission in Pakistan.
Military experts and former diplomats to Afghanistan accuse Pakistan of backing the Taliban. China, Iran and Russia, all of whom share a border with the war-ridden country, are moving to fill the vacuum being left behind by the U.S.-led withdrawal.
“These [Taliban] terrorist foot soldiers are merely the latest recruits, fresh cannon fodder, for Pakistan’s forever war in Afghanistan, which started with General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s coup in 1977 and isn’t ending now,” former Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan Chris Alexander wrote in the Globe & Mail newspaper last month.
Despite the Taliban’s military successes, a senior official to President Ghani, Waheed Omer, told the BBC that he believes the Afghan government will prevail over the Taliban advance.
“They have managed to gain some territory but it’s not about territory. It’s about the people,” he said. “The people don’t want them and they will soon find that it was a mistake to actually attack our people.”
Already, the onslaught is causing a humanitarian crisis. The UN’s Refugee Agency (UNHCR) released a statement on Aug. 9 that said that 244,000 Afghanis have been internally placed since May alone due to fighting.
Waves of other civilians are fleeing the country to Turkey via Iran and to Central Asian countries like Tajikistan.
In areas where the Taliban is taking control, media outlets are closing, fearing for the safety of their staff. More than 90 outlets have reportedly closed due to intense fighting, and journalists find themselves negotiating their movement around the country with the Taliban. While journalists grapple with the threats posed by the Taliban, four have been arrested by the Afghan government on propaganda charges.
Turkey is considering taking a larger role in the conflict. The country already has troops in Afghanistan as part of a NATO force, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has offered to secure the Kabul airport and meet with Taliban leaders in an effort to restore peace. Motivation comes in part from growing public fear in Turkey of a renewed wave of refugees coming to the country seeking asylum.
“If we do not get a control of things like this at a high level, it won’t be possible to secure peace this time in Afghanistan,” Erdogan said, when asked about his proposition to hold peace talks.
In addition, Russia and China recently conducted military drills to secure their borders. Meanwhile, Moscow has held negotiations with the Taliban, whom it considers a terrorist group, to broker an agreement that conflict won’t spill over closer to its border or neighboring Central Asian countries that border the country.
As the extremist Islamist group advances relentlessly, civilians throughout the country flee their homes in search of safety. Tens of thousands of people from the northern provinces have been displaced this week alone as a result of the fighting, many of them heading to Kabul. They describe brutal force from the Taliban, as well as governmental airstrikes that fall on residential areas.
