The billions spent by the US and NATO on the Afghan military could not fix major internal flaws.
On August 15, the Taliban captured the Afghan capital Kabul and declared the war in Afghanistan over. The lightning speed with which the group made major territorial gains as the Afghan National Defence Security Forces (ANDSF) retreated without putting up a fight shocked many.
Al Jazeera visualises Afghanistan – a mostly mountainous country of 38 million people – which has suffered decades of war.
Over the past few days, the Taliban has taken 26 of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals.
The armed group now controls an estimated 65 percent of the country’s territory, as the US-led foreign forces are about to complete the pullout from the country after 20 years of war.
Six important figures lead the Taliban movement, which has been fighting the Western-backed government since 2001.
The Taliban has been fighting the Western-backed Afghan government in Kabul since it was removed from power in 2001.
It originally drew members from so-called “mujahideen” fighters who, with support from the United States, repelled Soviet forces in the 1980s.
The bustling metropolis of six million saw businesses shut as people stayed indoors after the Taliban took over.
The first day of what the Taliban calls the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” saw Kabul, a bustling metropolis of six million, turn into a slow, male-dominated city without police or traffic controls and with shuttered businesses everywhere.
Leading figures in the insurgent group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which is the dominant faction in the insurgent-held regions of Idlib and its environs, have long expressed admiration for the Taliban in Afghanistan and its efforts in the face of the Afghan government that was backed by the United States and other international actors. For them, the Taliban’s recent victory in Afghanistan constitutes a victory for Muslims (i.e. Sunnis) and is an example of steadfastness in the face of a foreign occupation. Unsurprisingly, therefore, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham has released its own official statement congratulating the Taliban and the ‘people of the Afghans’. The statement highlights the Taliban’s years of fighting as an inspiration for its own ‘steadfastness’, while also urging the international community to recognise that it should not support oppressive regimes against the will of the peoples who reject them. The statement concludes with a hope for victory to liberate Syria and implement Islamic law.
American media and other politicians, and the people they pay to say things, are locked up tight with the demise in Afghanistan. How could anyone let this happen? Who’s to blame for these precipitous – they claim — events? What awful chaos at the airport! The answers are as vacuous as the questions.
Two decades of American sacrifice was too few years for them.
Former President Donald Trump described the recent events in Afghanistan as the worst humiliation in American history but defended the agreement his administration struck with the Taliban last year.
“It’s a great thing that we’re getting out, but nobody has ever handled a withdrawal worse than Joe Biden,” the former president told Fox News Tuesday.
Alianța pentru Unirea Românilor (AUR) susține că acest lucru „ar putea genera reale amenințări la adresa securității naționale și afecta bugetul țării și așa insuficient”, se arată într-un comunicat remis miercuri, 18 august, de formațiunea politică.
Emboldened by the U.S. decision to withdraw from Afghanistan in April, the Taliban has surged across the country in a dramatic offensive. In response, Afghan security forces have collapsed like dominos, militarily overwhelmed or simply coerced into surrender. The fate of Kabul and the central government looks decidedly uncertain. For the first time in many years, al-Qaeda and its central leadership look likely to have a safe-haven in which to operate, while the group’s network of jihadist allies will feel similarly confident about what the future holds.
Introduction
On April 14, 2021, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA, or the Afghan Taliban organization) announced that it would not participate in the Istanbul conference on the future of Afghanistan. The Istanbul conference, which was set to begin on April 24, is led primarily by the United States, with other partners being Turkey, Qatar, and the United Nations.[2]