Taliban Seize Kandahar, Prepare to March on Afghan Capital Kabul

KABUL—The Taliban pressed their rapid advance across Afghanistan with the seize of Kandahar, the nation’s next-biggest city and the Islamist movement’s birthplace, and up coming threatened Kabul, prompting the U.S. to ship 1000’s of troops for a diplomatic evacuation.

Immediately after 20 several years of war, significantly of what the U.S. sought to execute in Afghanistan crumbled in just 1 week. The insurgent motion controlled none of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals till it seized the remote city of Zaranj just a week previously, Aug. six.

Through that advance, Afghan stability forces, intended to quantity 350,000 men, normally surrendered with no a battle, with soldiers supplying up American-purchased weaponry and getting edge of Taliban promises of amnesty. Politicians in the U.S.-backed government in Kabul continued to squabble, with some senior officers quietly slipping abroad, at a time when unity was essential the most.

By Friday night time, when the 1st American units began to get there to safe the airport to evacuate the bulk of U.S. diplomatic personnel, the mood in Kabul was largely of resignation that the nation’s money, like so a lot of provincial towns, would shortly occur underneath the Taliban’s sway, way too.

“Kabul will slide faster or later since the morale of stability forces is so weak. The government doesn’t actually assistance them,” stated Team. Sgt. Khaluddin, 1 of the Afghan soldiers defending Kabul. He was on leave in his hometown of Kunduz when it was overrun by insurgents this earlier week. He managed to escape with family members members to Kabul on a moto-rickshaw and resumed services in his Kabul-primarily based unit.