Districts fall, often without a fight, as insurgents negotiate surrender deals. About 30 districts had fallen into the hands of the insurgents since early May 2021. Meanwhile, Taliban are advancing closer to the outskirts of key provincial capitals. Afghanistan has a total of 387 districts and nearly two dozens were taken over by the Taliban, mostly in northern Afghanistan, just over the last weekend.
Therefore, the Taliban advances prompted agencies last week to revise previously "optimistic" outlook for how long Kabul can hold out. But with continuing defeats and surrenders, the morale of Afghan security forces might be waning, thereby, further enhancing the leverage the insurgents have.
Afghan security forces frequently surrender without a fight, leaving their Humvees and other American-supplied equipment to the insurgents. Often unpaid for months, these troops leave the armored vehicles, artillery and heavy machine guns in exchange for Taliban guarantee for safe passage, thereby, adding to the stockpiles held by the insurgents.
The new assessment of the overall U.S. intelligence community has now aligned more closely with the analysis that had been generated by the U.S. military, reported the WSJ.
On Wednesday, Taliban fighters were battling government troops inside the northern city of Kunduz after occupying the main border crossing with Tajikistan the previous day and reaching the outskirts of northern Afghanistan’s main hub, Mazar-e-Sharif. Tajikistan’s border service said 134 Afghan troops at the crossing were granted refuge while some 100 others were killed or captured by the Taliban.
Overall, the Taliban’s lightning offensive in northern Afghanistan resulted in the fall of dozens of districts over the past week, putting much of the countryside under insurgent control. Local politicians and tribal elders negotiated a series of surrender agreements with government forces.
Trained and equipped by the U.S. and Western allies for nearly two decades, the Afghan security forces, numbering roughly 260,000 men, should be strong enough to prevent the Taliban from seizing power in the immediate aftermath of the American military withdrawal that is nearing completion.
Yet, the seemingly never-ending succession of battlefield setbacks that suddenly accelerated this weekend is beginning to create a perception of inevitability about a Taliban takeover. It is a perception that, unless quickly reversed, risks snowballing into a self-fulfilling prophecy, writes the WSJ.