Maria Laura Avignolo
08/13/2021 4:32 PM
Clarín.com
World
Updated 08/13/2021 4:32 PM
The offensive of the Taliban rebels in Afghanistan advances towards Kabul with the good supplies abandoned by NATO and the United States in retreat.
Jeeps Humvees, armored vehicles, anti-aircraft guns, artillery, tanks, M16 rifles and ammunition.
In bases where pro-government forces fled or surrendered and in fallen cities, militiamen have found planes, non-functioning helicopters and jets.
They have few pilots to drive them but are willing to train them, when
the Afghan Air Force has been disbanded
because the pilots desert in fear of retaliation against their family.
“Our militiamen can use US tanks, remote-controlled drones and we recently captured a helicopter at Kunduz airport, which is not fit to fly.
Our men cannot fly helicopters.
But we have few members who know how to fly airplanes.
If we have control of more air bases, we will definitely train our men to fly jets, helicopters and airplanes, "announced Mujahid, the top Taliban spokesman.
Islamist fighters advanced up to 80 kilometers from Kabul, the capital, this Friday morning, after capturing more key Afghan cities overnight.
An image of the city of Lashkar Gah, taken by the rebels.
The Taliban advance is accelerating across Afghanistan.
Photo: EFE
Evacuation at full speed
Western governments were preparing to evacuate their citizens from the country
.
The American embassy moved to the airport.
British diplomats left their residence for "a safe place" as 600 British soldiers, led by special forces and paratroopers, arrived to begin the evacuation.
Another 3,000 US soldiers must land to evacuate their own.
The question is whether they will arrive in time
, when the resistance of the government forces to the Taliban gives way and thousands of soldiers surrender or join the Islamist ranks.
The ambassador, Sir Laurie Bristow, was transferred to an undisclosed safe place, not far from the current American embassy, big as a town in Kabul.
Dizzying advance of the rebels
After taking Kandahar, Afghanistan's second city and the former capital of the Taliban regime, the insurgents advanced into Logar province.
They stormed the provincial capital Puli Alam, seized the police headquarters and
released hundreds of prisoners from the local jail
.
The lightning advance of the Taliban has brought at least a dozen major cities to the hands of insurgents in just one week.
The offensive has caused panic in Kabul as
fears
mount
that the capital will fall within days
.
Afghan security officers sleep next to a vehicle at a base in Kandahar.
Photo: AP
Their attack began after the United States withdrew its troops from the country, under an agreement reached last year between the administration of President Donald Trump and the Taliban, which promised peace in exchange for withdrawal.
It was not fulfilled.
The Taliban began their offensive in the field, advanced on the provincial capitals and are now on their way to Kabul, the capital.
In Puli Alam, residents watched Taliban fighters enter the city on motorcycles, meeting
little resistance
from government troops.
The white flag of the militants was raised throughout the city.
Local mosque loudspeakers were ordered to issue orders.
"I am standing next to my house looking at the Taliban outside, walking the streets," said a local.
"They announced over loudspeakers that those who work for the government must stay home and will be safe," he said.
People are terrified of retaliation and that the Taliban behave brutally, relying on the Islamic sjharia.
Smoke from fighting between the Taliban and Afghan troops in Kandahar.
Photo: AP
Torture, massacres and more atrocities
Reports of
atrocities and summary executions
of hundreds of government employees and captured soldiers have spread since the Taliban launched their offensive in May.
Some captured local officials appear to have been beheaded or tortured to death.
Taliban fighters have taken Herat, Afghanistan's third-largest city, as well as Kandahar, as they approach the capital, Kabul.
Twist in strategy
As the resistance of government forces has collapsed and cities have begun to fall by the day, the Taliban appear to have taken a softer line, offering
pardons to surrendering troops
to hasten the collapse.
The tactic has proven effective, with hundreds of Afghan soldiers laying down their arms rather than fighting, some encouraging their comrades to do the same. Many of the officers have fled to save their families.
But no one guarantees that the Taliban militiamen will not act brutally, regardless of the strategy of their bosses.
There are already reports of government soldiers being dragged in vans through the villages, massacres and beheadings.
Families also flee in terror because the militiamen go door to door and steal women and adolescents as sex slaves.
A behavior of ISIS terrorists.
Jihadist foreigners are believed to be infiltrating from Pakistan among the Taliban, especially British of Pakistani origin, according to wiretaps by British intelligence services.
Gulbuddin, another Puli Alam resident, said government employees remained suspicious of the Taliban's offer of surrender and amnesty.
However, they were terrified by reports of alleged opponents killed by militants in other states.
"Many local officials were in hiding or had fled to Kabul," he said.
Afghan police and military in Kandahar, one of the last cities taken by the Taliban rebels.
Photo: AP
“The Taliban amnesty is fine for now.
It has calmed the situation, but there are no guarantees, "he said.
But he remarked: "Later they will kill whoever they want."
Triumphant return
On Thursday night, the Taliban announced their triumphant return to
Kandahar, the birthplace and spiritual home of the Islamist movement
.
Afghan troops and local militias had held out in the southern city for three weeks of fierce fighting.
But images surfaced of columns of armored vehicles leaving Kandahar on Thursday as government resistance collapsed.
The insurgents rejected a power-sharing agreement from the Afghan government
, in exchange for a ceasefire, saying they would accept peace only in exchange for a new Islamic emirate.
Details of the deal proposed by negotiators in Qatar, where renewed efforts are underway to revive the peace talks, have not been made public.
Rejection of a "government of peace"
Ghulam Farooq Majrooh, a negotiator for Afghan President Ghani, said the Taliban had been invited to form a "peace government".
Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said the movement rejected "the government's call for a ceasefire."
He insisted that the insurgents would accept peace "only if an Islamic government was established."
They demand the departure of President Ghani.
The pro-government Afghan forces were well trained but could not receive ammunition, food, reinforcements, or air support.
Surrender became the inevitable path.
Since 2014, 45,000 government forces have been killed fighting a 75,000-strong Taliban force.
The group has always rejected Ghani's legitimacy, dismissing him as "an American puppet."
In March, the government rejected a US power-sharing deal.
The Taliban will regard Ghani's latest offer as "a sign of despair", after a series of
devastating military defeats
this week, as insurgents rapidly approach Kabul.
“The Taliban will not accept Kabul's offer to share power and a ceasefire.
Our goal is to end foreign intervention and an Islamic government will be formed in this country, ”said Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman.
“If they accept this offer, we are ready for a ceasefire.
If Kabul is not ready to accept our demands, then it will not be difficult for us to fight and continue our jihad (holy war), ”said the Taliban spokesman.
"Rotten" deal
The US withdrawal from Afghanistan is a "mistake" and "will lead to the resurgence of al-Qaeda, which represents a threat to the West," warned British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace.
Ben Wallace said the West "will probably pay the consequences" for the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan.
He pointed a critical finger at Donald Trump, the former US president, and described a deal he made with the Taliban on withdrawal as "rotten."
“At the time of Trump's deal with the Taliban, I felt it was a mistake to have done it that way.
Everyone in the international community will probably pay the consequences for that.
I think the deal that was made in Doha was a rotten deal, "he said.
“I've been pretty direct about it publicly and that's pretty rare when it comes to US decisions.
But strategically it causes a lot of problems, ”Wallace told Sky News in London.
“I am absolutely concerned that failed states are breeding grounds for such people.
That is why I felt that this was not the right time or decision to make because probably Al Qaeda will return, "warned the British Defense Minister.
British MP Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and former Helmand military veteran, wrote on Twitter: “A hasty departure is not a sign of success.
Needing backup to keep the door open when leaving is a sure sign of failure. "
The Conservative MP, who has openly criticized the withdrawal, spoke of his own time serving in the armed forces in Afghanistan.
Displaced Afghans in a makeshift camp in Kabul, the country's capital.
Photo: AP
"The decision to retire is like a rug being pulled from under our partners' feet," he said.
Lord Richards, a former British military chief, told Newsnight on the BBC: “It is a tacit admission, explicit indeed, of failure.
Of a serious and regrettable failure of geostrategy and the art of government ".
The decision of US President Joe Biden has been a catastrophic miscalculation, the price of which will be global insecurity and total Afghan destabilization.
The people of Afghanistan will never forget, after 20 years of occupation, education of their children, certain feminine rights.
They will pay for it with their lives and with the fear of returning to medieval practices.
Paris, correspondent
CB
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