[The move essentially ceded the last island of government control in the provincial capital to the Taliban. The group overran much of Kunduz over the weekend, one advance amid days of sweeping gains by the fighters across northern and western Afghanistan. The Taliban has now pushed into nine provincial capitals. On Tuesday alone, three towns were overrun by the group.]
By Susannah George
and Ezzatullah Mehrdad
After holding out for days at a
military base on the edge of Kunduz, an entire Afghan army corps surrendered to Taliban
fighters Wednesday morning, handing over valuable equipment — much of it
American — according to two Afghan officers who spoke on the condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The move essentially ceded the last
island of government control in the provincial capital to the Taliban. The
group overran much of Kunduz over the weekend, one advance amid days of sweeping gains by the fighters across northern and
western Afghanistan. The Taliban has now pushed into nine provincial capitals.
On Tuesday alone, three towns were overrun by the group.
“The Taliban are at the gate, but
no one is fighting. I don’t understand,” said one of the Afghan officers,
recounting the conversation he had with a member of his unit who was at the
Kunduz base when the Taliban began to push closer. “Brother, if no one else
fights, why should I fight?” was the reply.
Moments after the conversation, the
soldier changed into civilian clothing and fled into the city, the officer
said. That was before he knew a deal had been in the works between the Taliban
and some of the base’s commanders.
In the days leading up to the mass
surrender in Kunduz, local elders had visited the base near the city’s airport
and asked commanders there to surrender to the Taliban, which pledged not to
harm them, said Zargul Alemi, a member of the Kunduz provincial council who
fled the province before the surrender. Alemi said that after some commanders
accepted the surrender deal, along with a fraction of soldiers at the base, the
rest of the forces retreated to a nearby mountain range.
Alemi estimated that as many as
2,000 Afghan troops were at the base at the time of the surrender and
desertions. The Afghan army corps stationed there — one of seven in the entire
country — was responsible for the northern region.
“I don’t know why the commanders
did not gather their forces and fight until the last drop of their blood, with
all the guns, resources and ammunition they had in the airport and the corps,”
Alemi said. The soldiers who surrendered handed over Humvees, weapons and other
supplies to the Taliban, she said.
The two Afghan officers said that
those who surrendered were escorted by the Taliban to a nearby district, where
they were offered protection as long as they did not leave Kunduz province.
Taliban forces are in the midst of
a military blitz largely focused in northern and western Afghanistan. On
Tuesday, the militants overran the capitals of Badakhshan in the north, Farah
in the west and Baghlan, just a five-hour drive north of Kabul.
“We feel betrayed,” said Fawzia
Yaftali, another Kunduz provincial council member, who accused the government
in Kabul of making a deal with the Taliban to hand the militants control of the
country’s north.
One of the Afghan officers blamed
sophisticated Taliban psychological operations for much of the collapse of
Afghanistan’s military. He said rumors have spread through the Afghan security
forces that Kabul has made a deal with the Taliban to hand over control of
portions of the country.
The impact on morale has been
detrimental, he said. In recent months, desertions have been so common that the
number of Afghan military casualties has dropped in half, he said.
“We aren’t loosing our forces in
the fight anymore,” the officer said. “They are just changing their clothes and
putting their guns down.”
Taliban fighters have expanded
their control in southern, western and central Afghanistan and have overrun
much of the north since the final phase of the U.S. withdrawal began in May.
Initially, the group focused on the country’s rural areas, but over the past
week, it has started pushing into urban centers.
Government control has shrunk
dramatically, to less than a third of the country’s territory. The United
States is continuing to support Afghan forces with airstrikes, but the
withdrawal of foreign troops is set to conclude at the end of August.
On Wednesday, Pentagon spokesman
John Kirby challenged the view that the U.S. military “fell short over the
course of 20 years” in creating a sustainable military in Afghanistan.
“I take exception to the notion
that somehow over the course of 20 years we simply failed in trying to improve
the competency and capability of Afghan forces when we look at what they’re
doing today,” Kirby said. “It comes down to leadership on the battlefield and
leadership in Kabul.”
Kirby said that “no one is passing
any bucks,” and that Pentagon officials are watching what is happening in
Afghanistan with great concern. He declined to address whether the speed of the
Taliban’s rise has prompted discussion in the U.S. government about evacuating
personnel this month.
According to a U.S. official who
spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak
publicly to the media, the Taliban’s simultaneous operations to take provincial
capitals are also designed to burn out the two key advantages of Afghan forces
— special forces and the Afghan air force.
Afghan attack planes and gunships
are flying at a breakneck pace, churning through parts and maintenance needs
after the departure of U.S. contractors that maintained the aircraft. The
Afghan air force has begun flying aircraft to another country to conduct
maintenance, officials have said.
And elite Afghan soldiers were
dispatched through the south in key cities such as Lashkar Gah, but in the west
and north, where there are far fewer of them, the United States has not been
able to use airstrikes at will. For instance, in the southwestern provincial
capital of Zaranj, Afghan troops fled mostly without a fight, leaving no one to
coordinate a strike on massing Taliban militants, the official said.
Kirby declined to publicly describe
recent airstrikes in the closing days of U.S. support from the air.
“We continue to fly airstrikes in
support of Afghan forces on the ground, where and when feasible,” Kirby told
reporters Monday.
Alex Horton and Dan Lamothe in
Washington contributed to this report.
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