U.S. (Washington Insider Magazine) -The second largest city in Afghanistan, Kandahar, fell to the Taliban on Aug. 13, according to local officials and militants, as the Islamist insurgent group sweeps across the country, displacing tens of thousands of citizens.
After 20 years of war, thousands of lives lost, millions of people displaced, and trillions of dollars’ worth of resources, the world is watching its attempts to change Afghanistan be undone in the span of weeks. The Taliban is edging closer to the power it held in the 1990s.
Just prior to their capture of Kandahar, the Taliban seized four additional provincial capitals on Aug. 13: Lashkar Gah, Herat, Pul-e-Alam and Firoz Koh. Their rapid success and conquest in the span of a week leave the group poised to attack the capital city of Kabul and threaten complete control of the country. As the U.S. and NATO allies leave the country after 20 years of intervention, the Taliban is relentlessly filling in the gaps, leaving many citizens with a sense of panic and generating fear over the strength of the Afghan government.
The U.S., U.K. and Canada are expediting their withdrawal from the country and have ordered the evacuation of their embassies in Kabul. U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price has emphasized that the embassy is staying open despite the embassy bringing home 1,400 U.S. citizens.
“This is not abandonment. This is not an evacuation. This is not a wholesale withdrawal,” Price said. “What this is, is a reduction in the size of our civilian footprint.”
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden is sending 3,000 troops to help with the partial evacuation of the U.S. Embassy. The Pentagon is also sending 3,500 to 4,000 troops to Kuwait as a reserve force and 1,000 Army and Air Force troops to Qatar to help with the Special Immigrant Visa process for Afghans who worked for the U.S. government, including valuable interpreters, and are at risk from the Taliban.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense announced that it will deploy 600 troops to assist with the evacuation of U.K. nationals. Canadian special forces will also be deployed to help evacuate Canadian staff at its diplomatic mission.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby called the number of troops “prudent preparation” in an Aug. 12 press briefing.
“Your question about the numbers being too high, we believe it is appropriate to the security situation that we see now and that we can anticipate possibly in the future,” he said.
Afghan filmmaker Sahraa Karimi told the BBC it felt like the world had turned its back on Afghanistan.
“I am in danger – [but] I don’t anymore think about myself,” she said. “I think about our country… I think about our generation: that we did a lot to bring these changes.”
U.S. governmental officials are working to counter portrayals of the military withdrawal as an abandonment. Parallels are being raised with the fall of Saigon in 1975, and the political fallout for Biden threatens to increase with each fallen provincial capital.
Johnny Mercer, who served in the British Army in Afghanistan before being elected to the House of Commons, called the withdrawal a mistake akin to “child’s play.”
“The debate over going there in the first place is redundant. We are where we are. But to think we can just leave is child’s play — the sort of student politics that permeates far too much of our political life at the moment,” he said.
AFP correspondent Anne Chaon spoke with women activists in the country. A woman identified as Rada by the French state-run news agency expressed fear over an uncertain future.
“Today, it’s difficult to keep hope. Every day could be the last,” Rada told her. “And it’s not only me, we all feel the same thing. What’s going to happen tomorrow, will I still be alive?”
