In just over a week, the Taliban has captured nearly 20 provincial capitals including Kandahar and Herat, Afghanistan’s second- and third-largest cities. The collapse of Afghan forces comes amid the continued US withdrawal. On Thursday, the State Department urged all Americans to get out of the country immediately.
Former Trump secretary of state Mike Pompeo has expressed disappointment with the Biden administration over its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and criticised the White House’s reported pleading with the Taliban* not to attack the US Embassy if they take Kabul.
On Thursday, the Pentagon announced that 3,000 troops would be temporarily sent into Afghanistan from Kuwait to provide security assistance for US diplomats and nationals evacuating the country.
Commenting on the deployment to Fox News, Pompeo suggested that it “looks like this was poor planning, poor leadership” on Biden’s part.
“The model of deterrence that the Trump administration had in place – we prepared to bring the soldiers…home. Looks like they’ve not been able to execute this. Strategy depends on planning and execution, looks like there’s a bit of panic. I hope that they’ve got the right number of folks, that they can get them there quickly. I hope that we can protect Americans in the way that the Trump administration had every intention of doing as we drew down our forces there,” Pompeo added.
Asked how the Trump administration would have proceeded with the withdrawal, Pompeo stressed that the administration had “conditions attached to how we were thinking about this withdrawal,” and that he personally was “part of those negotiations.”
Pompeo is the second senior Trump administration official to criticise the White House amid the increasingly chaotic US withdrawal from the country.
On Thursday, Trump himself bragged that he had had discussions with top Taliban leaders and made clear to them that “what they are doing now would not have been acceptable” if he were still president. “It would have been a much different and much more successful withdrawal, and the Taliban understood that better than anyone,” he claimed.
Trump administration negotiators signed a peace agreement with the Taliban on 29 February 2020 in Doha, Qatar after several years of negotiations. The deal committed Washington to withdraw all US and NATO forces from the war-torn country, while the Sunni militant group agreed not to attack US forces, and pledged not to allow al-Qaeda* and other terrorist groups from operating in territories under its control. It also committed the Taliban to begin negotiating with the Afghan government, but did not obligate either to halt hostilities.
Under the Doha deal, the US and its allies were supposed to have withdrawn all troops by 1 May. However, President Biden unilaterally stalled the withdrawal process for several months after stepping into office, despite warnings from the Taliban that they would not tolerate a violation of the peace agreement.
In April, Biden announced that the US-led coalition would only start its withdrawal in May and complete it by the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, which served as the formal pretext for the US invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. Earlier this summer, the White House accelerated the withdrawal and promised to pull all troops out by the end of August.
The US withdrawal from Afghanistan has resulted in a dramatic deterioration of the security situation for the Afghan government, as well Afghanistan’s neighbours, which have beefed up border security with the war-torn nation.
On 6 August, the Taliban captured Zaranj, the capital of Nimroz province. In the days since, city after city has collapsed to the militants’ advance, and they now have control of 18 of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals, including its second and third-largest cities, Kandahar and Herat.
The rapid collapse of Afghan security forces, despite their numerical superiority, NATO training, and advantages in military equipment, prompted the US Embassy in Afghanistan to issue a security alert urging all US citizens to “leave Afghanistan immediately” on Thursday. The same day, the New York Times reported that the US government had quietly requested guarantees from the Taliban that they would not attack the US diplomatic mission if Kabul was suddenly overrun. The embassy presently has about 4,000 employees, including 1,400 US nationals, but expects to draw down their number in the face of the Taliban offensive.
The Pentagon has moved to deploy 3,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to assist in the departure of embassy staff, on top of the estimated 650 troops still left in the country. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby stressed that the deployment was temporary, and that the US still plans to complete its withdrawal from Afghanistan by 31 August.
Canada has also reportedly deployed special forces to evacuate its embassy staffers, while UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has warned that Britain might send troops back to the country if al-Qaeda returns to Afghanistan or if the Taliban tries to attack the West. According to US estimates, about 200-300 al-Qaeda terrorists are in the country at the moment. However, the Russian military has indicated that terrorists are being transferred to Afghanistan from other conflict zones, including Syria and Libya, by unidentified forces.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
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