Joe Biden unmoved as Taliban takes more centres

Joe Biden is standing firm on his decision to withdraw from ­Afghanistan despite a sixth capital falling to the Taliban on Tuesday.

Afghan families, who fled from Kunduz and Takhar province due to fighting between Taliban and Afghan security forces, sit in a field in Kabul on Monday. Picture: AFP

Joe Biden is standing firm on his decision to withdraw from ­Afghanistan despite a sixth capital falling to the Taliban on Tuesday.

The insurgents’ blitz across the country’s north has forced thousands of people to flee their homes for the relative safety of Kabul and other centres.

The Taliban now has its eyes on Mazar-i-Sharif, the biggest city in the north, whose fall would signal the total collapse of government control in a region that has ­traditionally been anti-Taliban.

Government forces are also battling the hard line Islamists in Kandahar and Helmand, the southern Pashto-speaking provinces from where the Taliban draws its strength.

As fighting raged, tens of thousands of people were on the move, with tales of brutal treatment at the hands of the insurgents.

“The Taliban are beating and looting,” said Rahima, now camped out with hundreds of families at a park in Kabul, after fleeing Sheberghan province in the north.

“If there is a young girl or a widow in a family, they forcibly take them. We fled to protect our honour,” said Farid, an evacuee from Kunduz who did not want to be further identified.

The Taliban’s advances were not unexpected in Washington as the US military completes the pullout ordered by the US President by August 31.

“The decision to withdraw was made in full knowledge that what we are seeing happen now was likely to happen,” said Laurel Miller, a former US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

For Mr Biden, who long championed ending America’s longest-ever war, there is a cold calculation: nothing more could be achieved and the US long ago ­accomplished its stated goal of ­defeating al-Qa’ida in the region after the 9/11 attacks, though the Taliban has yet to cut its ties with the group.

“Nearly 20 years of experience has shown us that ‘just one more year’ of fighting in Afghanistan is not a solution but a recipe for being there indefinitely,” Mr Biden said last month.

The US plans to keep arming and training the Afghan military but one key question is whether it will carry out airstrikes against the Taliban after August 31.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby confirmed on Tuesday AEST that US bombing sorties backed Afghan allies last week but indicated there was no decision to do so after the withdrawal, with the administration previously saying air power would be limited to counter-terrorism operations.

“It’s their country to defend. This is their struggle,” Mr Kirby said, while acknowledging the situation was “clearly not going in the right direction”.

The administration also warned the Taliban that it risked being a pariah if it took over by force, even though the Islamist group was internationally isolated when ruling much of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

 

The pariah argument is “the leverage that the administration is leaning heavily on because that’s the leverage they’ve got”, said Ms Miller, now Asia program director at the International Crisis Group.

“The Taliban, I think, would prefer to have legitimacy and ­financial assistance from the international community. But their No. 1 preference is gaining power.”

She said the government’s best-case scenario was to force a stalemate with the Taliban and then seek a political settlement.

Michael Kugelman, deputy ­director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, doubted that the US had the means to turn the tide now that it was withdrawing.

“I fear that the Taliban is just so strong and the Afghan military is so beleaguered right now, it’s going to be hard to find some type of momentum changer from the US,” he said.

The US will send envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to Qatar this week in another bid to organise a ceasefire. But the militants have appeared largely indifferent to peace overtures, and seem intent on a military victory to crown a return to power after their ouster 20 years ago.

Following the capture of Aibak on Monday, the insurgents have now overrun six provincial capitals in the north, sparking fears the government has lost its grip on the region. They have also taken Zaranj, the capital of Nimroz province, in the southwest. The manner in which the cities have fallen – some without a fight – has alarmed many.

On Monday, the Taliban said it was moving in on Mazar-i-Sharif after capturing Sheberghan to its west, and Kunduz and Taloqan to its east. A spokesman said Taliban fighters had entered the city, but officials – and residents contacted by phone – said the group was ­exaggerating, with clashes confined to surrounding districts.

Mazar’s longtime strongman, Atta Mohammad Noor, vowed to fight to the end, saying there would be “resistance until the last drop of my blood”.

AFP