2021 Taliban offensive

                                         hi i like fortnite India}}</ref> Abas Ebrahimzada, a lawmaker from the Balkh province, said that in Mazar-i-Sharif, the national army surrendered first which caused the pro-government militia and other forces to lose morale and surrender in the face of Taliban assault on the city. Following the loss of the city, Atta Muhammad Nur stated in a Facebook post that his defeat in Mazar-i-Sharif was planned and held the government forces responsible for the defeat. He did not specify who was behind the conspiracy, nor provide any detail other then saying that he and Dostum are in a safe place. Later, Taliban forces also entered Maidan Shar, center of Maidan Wardak Province. At this point, the rebels had encircled Kabul, while the Afghan National Army had descended into chaos following its rapid defeat across the country. Only the 201st Corps and 111th Division, both based at the Afghan capital, were left operational.

Early on 15 August 2021, the Taliban entered Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar Province, unopposed. It was the twenty-sixth provincial capital to fall, and its capture left Kabul as the last major city under Afghan government control. Soon afterward, Maidan Shar, Khost, Bamyan, Mahmud-i-Raqi, Charikar and Parun also fell. Afghan commandos managed to successfully evacuate Kandahar Airport on the same day; the airport had still been held by government loyalists up to this point. Security forces surrendered Bagram Airfield to the Taliban; the airbase houses around 5,000 Taliban and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant prisoners.

Also on 15 August, authorities in Uzbekistan detained 84 Afghan soldiers who had crossed the border, and provided medical aid to both the detained soldiers and a group of soldiers which had gathered on the Afghan side of the Termez-Khairaton bridge.

On 16 August, the Khost Protection Force (KPF), a militia unit created by the CIA in the early years of the US invasion, surrendered to Taliban forces in eastern Afghanistan after attempting to flee to Paktia Province. According to local journalists cited by Interfax, about 6,000 KPF in 1,200 vehicles surrendered to the Taliban, with a video of the surrender being posted to social media.

NATO airlifts

Main article: 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan

British soldiers deploying to Kabul to assist in the NATO withdrawal, 13 August 2021

On 12 August, a few hours after the fall of Herat, the United States and United Kingdom governments announced the deployment of 3,000 and 600 of their troops respectively to the Kabul airport, in order to secure the airlifting of their nationals, embassy staff and the Afghan civilians who worked with the coalition forces out of the country. Officials said that the first deployment would occur in the next 24 to 48 hours, and that it would be completed by the end of the month. According to those sources the plan was to use charter aircraft for the evacuation using the Kabul airport which still allowed commercial airliners to fly at the time, however that military aircraft would be used if that became impossible. According to the British government, the evacuation and its timing had long been planned, while an Afghan official said that the timing was brought forward as the security situation rapidly deteriorated. In addition to the 3,000 US troops, an additional 3,500 will be on standby in Kuwait in case the situation escalates to an armed conflict with the Taliban. Canada announced that Canadian special forces units will be deployed to evacuate embassy personnel in Kabul, which houses Afghan families who have worked with Canadian staff in the past. The Danish and Norwegian governments announced their embassies in Kabul would close for security reasons and plans to evacuate their diplomatic staff and Afghans who worked alongside them would move forward.

Fall of Kabul

Main article: Fall of Kabul (2021)

Taliban fighters in Kabul, 17 August 2021

On 15 August, despite issuing a statement saying it had no plans to take the Afghan capital "by force", the Taliban entered the outskirts of Kabul from multiple directions, including Kalakan District, Qarabagh District, and Paghman District. A citywide blackout and possible assault and inmate uprising at Pul-e-Charkhi prison was reported. Boeing CH-47 Chinook and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters began landing at the American embassy in Kabul to carry out evacuations and diplomats were rapidly shredding classified documents.

The Afghan interior ministry announced that President Ghani had decided to relinquish power and an interim government led by the Taliban would be formed; former president Hamid Karzai was to be part of the negotiation team. The Taliban ordered its fighters to wait for a peaceful transfer of power and to not enter Kabul by force.

On 15 August it was reported that President Ghani had left the country for Tajikistan. Ghani's departure from Afghanistan was criticised by many Afghans and outside observers. Nikita Ishchenko, a spokesperson for Russia's embassy in Kabul, claimed that Ghani fled Afghanistan with four cars and helicopters full of money. Speaking later from the United Arab Emirates, Ghani said he left on the advice of government aides to avoid being lynched (Afghan president President Mohammad Najibullah had been publicly hanged upon the previous Taliban takeover in 1996). He denied reports that he had taken large sums of money with him, noting that he had passed through customs on his arrival in the UAE.

US soldiers with Afghans evacuating Hamid Karzai International Airport on 17 August, after the Taliban captured Kabul

Late on 15 August, an Afghan Air Force Embraer 314 and Uzbekistan Air Force MiG-29 collided mid-air, with both aircraft crashing in Uzbekistan's Surxondaryo Region. The pilots of both aircraft ejected and landed with parachutes. Earlier in the day, Uzbekistan said it had detained 84 Afghan soldiers who had crossed the border seeking medical assistance while fleeing the Taliban's offensives.

On 16 August, Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem said in an interview with Al Jazeera that war was over in Afghanistan. He said that the Taliban have achieved what they wanted, they will not allow Afghanistan's territory to be used against anyone, nor do they want to harm anyone. On the same day, Uzbekistan's prosecutor general office said that 22 military planes and 24 helicopters carrying around 585 Afghan soldiers had arrived in Uzbekistan. Around 158 Afghan soldiers crossed the Uzbekistan's border on foot.

The Pentagon confirmed the head of US Central Command in Qatar, General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., met Taliban leaders based in Qatar's capital Doha. The Taliban officials agreed to terms set by McKenzie for refugees to flee using Kabul Airport.

On 23 August, Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen indicated that they would be unwilling to extend the 31 August deadline for withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. The same day, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), William J. Burns, held a secret meeting in Kabul with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar, who returned to Afghanistan from exile in Qatar, to discuss the 31 August deadline.

War crimes

Main article: War crimes by the Taliban § 2021 Taliban offensive

The Taliban committed a number of war crimes during their 2021 offensive.

On 16 June, in Dawlat Abad, 22 unarmed Afghan Special Forces commandos were executed while attempting to surrender to Taliban forces. A video of the event circulated widely and was broadcast by CNN. Samira Hamidi of Amnesty International described the event as "the cold-blooded murder of surrendering soldiers – a war crime". She called for the event to be investigated as part of the International Criminal Court investigation in Afghanistan.

Amnesty International noted a massacre of Hazara by the Taliban in early July in Ghazni province as a "horrifying indicator" for the future. The Hazara men were variously shot and tortured to death, with one strangled by his own scarf and with his arm muscles sliced off, and another with his body shot to pieces.

On 6 August 2021, Taliban forces claimed responsibility for the 5 August assassination of Dawa Khan Menapal, head of the governmental media and information centre, in Kabul. On the same day, during which the Taliban took control of Zaranj, human rights activist Laal Gul Laal stated that the execution of 30 soldiers by the Taliban was a war crime. According to TOLOnews, some of the soldiers were tortured and had their eyes removed by the Taliban before they were killed.

Key factors

Key processes in the 2021 Taliban offensive started following the February 2020 US–Taliban deal, including a bottom-up succession of negotiated or paid surrenders to the Taliban from village level upwards, the Taliban's effective use of online social media and its strategical choice of attacking northern provinces, and the Taliban's freedom of movement on the main Afghan highways that resulted from the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) following the US-recommended strategy of sacrificing rural areas in favour of defending key urban centres.

Both the February 2020 drop in US support and changes in US support from April 2021 played a role in weakening the effectiveness of the ANSF, by removing technical, proprietary software and logistics support, in particular aerial support, after the ANSF had been trained as an armed force strongly dependent on high-tech aerial infrastructure.

Errors in the US coalition training of the ANSF were also blamed, along with Afghan police extorting locals and funding themselves by inventing ghost soldiers The sudden switch ANSF salary management in April 2021 to Afghan military administration led to months of unpaid ANSF salaries.

Cronyism in ANSF military appointments and president Ashraf Ghani's inability to create an effective national consensus were also seen as key processes leading to the ANSF's defeat. Local warlords' lack of confidence in national level political leadership contributed to their willingness to negotiate with or surrender to the Taliban.

Taliban strategy

Succession of negotiated or paid surrenders

Starting in early 2020, the Taliban started a bottom-up campaign of negotiations in rural villages with the lowest-ranked government officials. Officials named the resulting deals "ceasefires". According to Afghan and US officials interviewed by Susannah George of The Washington Post, the word "ceasefire" was misleading, since the officials were paid by the Taliban to transfer ANSF weapons to the Taliban. Continuing through to mid 2021, each successive surrender was used to help convince other governmental and village leaders and scale up in size to district level, to allow the Taliban forces to take control of much of Afghanistan without military fights. After US president Biden's April 2021 announcement confirming a full unconditional US withdrawal, the chain of surrenders accelerated, scaling up to province-level surrenders.

The chain of surrenders provided increased resources in terms of government vehicles for transporting Taliban forces.

According to Afghan special forces officers interviewed by Susannah George, some of the surrenders were motivated by the payments, while others were due to opportunism – the desire to be on the winning side that became credible following the February 2020 US–Taliban deal.

Role of online social media

The Taliban used online social media to convince Afghans that "the government was illegitimate" and that the Taliban would be successful in taking control of Afghanistan. Saad Mohseni, head of TOLOnews, stated that the Taliban's "outreach was fantastic" and that they "capitalised on intratribal, ethnic, religious and ideological differences to win over people" and exploited popular complaints against the government.

The Washington Post contrasted the Taliban's claims to follow "ancient moral codes" with its "strikingly sophisticated social media tactics to build political momentum". Themes spread by Taliban social media users aimed to override the Taliban's violent reputation while remaining within social content guidelines. The Washington Post suggested that the Taliban were being advised by a public relations firm, like corporate and political actors. The audience for Taliban online social media was seen to be as much international – expatriate Afghans and "Western powers" – as local. The message promoted in mid 2021 was "a gentler, more reassuring face of the Taliban". Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen has 350,000 Twitter followers. Much of Taliban social media communication was carried out on Twitter and WhatsApp, with WhatsApp used to request intervention by the Taliban in solving local problems. The Taliban had mastered effective use of hashtags by 2019.

Northern Afghanistan

During the Afghan Civil War (1996–2001), resistance to the Taliban was strongest in northern Afghanistan, the base of the Northern Alliance. According to the Afghanistan Analysts Network, the Taliban's concentration of its forces in the north may have been an attempt to forestall the creation of a second Northern Alliance after the withdrawal of US forces.

The Afghan government had not expected the Taliban to mount serious attacks in the north.

Freedom of military movement on highways

Andrew Watkins, senior analyst for Afghanistan at the International Crisis Group, said there was no evidence that the Taliban had increased their manpower to conduct this offensive, aside from utilising some of the 5,000 insurgents who had been released earlier. Watkins believes that the end of US airstrikes changed the scenario. He says that the end of US airstrikes granted the insurgents freedom of movement and they were able to regroup, plan and strengthen their supply lines without fear of US airstrikes. An international official interviewed by Voice of America stated that the Taliban had been able to move their forces freely throughout Afghanistan after the Doha Agreement with almost no intervention from the Afghan government forces.

According to David Zucchino, writing in The New York Times, the ANSF followed US military advice to concentrate their forces on urban centres, allowing rural areas to be sacrificed. The result was that the Taliban took control of most of Afghanistan's main highways in the northern winter of 2020/2021. Zucchino saw this as a key element of the ANSF losing the war against the Taliban. The Taliban control of the highways blocked ANSF supply and reinforcement lines and yielded revenue to the Taliban who taxed truck drivers.

Drop in US support for the ANSF

According to Sami Sadat, a three-star general of the ANSF, the February 2020 US–Taliban deal resulted to an "effectively ... overnight" change in the rules for US air support for the Afghan armed forces, leading to a sudden increase in battle effectiveness by the Taliban. The April 2021 confirmation by US president Biden of the US pullout resulted in the loss of contractors, proprietary software and weapons systems including the Afghan army's helicopter missile-defence system. The Afghan army had been trained on a high-tech military model using helicopters, airstrikes and technically specialised reconnaissance units. According to Sadat, the loss of technical support made the US high-tech army model ineffective, losing helicopter support for resupplying military bases, and aerial and laser-guided weapons.

Military historian Frederick Kagan agreed that Biden's way of making, timing and announcing his April 2021 withdrawal decision was a key factor in the defeat of the ANSF. He argued that very few US allies, including NATO members, "have the capacity to provide their own advanced air power, air cover, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets".

Issues with Afghan forces

Training and funding

According to official US "lessons learned" reports, the US coalition delayed its initial funding of the ANSF when the Taliban were weak after the 2001 US invasion, and when the Taliban were stronger, "[cut] corners on training and funding". The errors in training led to provincial police extorting money from local residents and getting paid for ghost soldiers.

Ghost soldiers

Corrupt Afghan army officers leading ghost battalions, who pocket the salaries of absent soldiers, was a known issue in the Afghan military. In a 2016 report, the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said "neither the United States nor its Afghan allies know how many Afghan soldiers and police actually exist, how many are in fact available for duty, or, by extension, the true nature of their operational capabilities". In early 2019, at least 42,000 ghost soldiers were removed from the army's payroll. However, the same year Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense denied the existence of ghost soldiers in the Afghan military. The ministry's spokesman, Rohullah Ahmadzai, said that all personnel of Afghan military have physical presence on their duties and those who were involved in corruption are under investigation by the ministry.

On 30 July, SIGAR said there were "corrosive effects of corruption within the ANDSF, inaccuracies on the actual strength of the Afghan forces, lack of combat readiness, will to fight, unsustainability due to dependencies on advanced equipment, lack of focus on ministerial-level capabilities, and lack of critical information, such as assessments of district control, that could be used to help measure the ANDSF’s performance in recent years".

Salary payment management

For years the Pentagon was responsible for paying salary directly to the Afghan soldiers. The responsibility for those payment was transferred to the Kabul government since the announcement of planned withdrawal in April. Since then numerous Afghan soldiers have complained that they have not been paid in months and in many cases their units were no longer receiving food, supplies or ammunition. Gen. Wesley Clark, a former NATO supreme allied commander, told CNN that many Afghan soldiers saw the job in military as paycheck, and not a cause. He said that Afghan military is composed of various tribes and factions that were historically at odds with each other. He also said that it is an old Afghan trick to side with the winner or at least stay away from the losing side, and that is why Afghan military disintegrated so quickly.

Military politicisation

The politicisation of Afghan military resulted in unqualified politicians, loyal to Ashraf Ghani, securing key positions in Afghan military. Hamdullah Mohib, Ghani's national security adviser, took direct control of military operations despite having no military experience. According to several senior government officials and diplomats, Mohib's orders often bypassed the normal chain of command.

Mike Martin, a former British army officer, said that Ghani lacked the political skills to keep the Afghanistan's many different ethnic groups loyal to the idea of a national cause. Many Afghans are more loyal towards their traditional ethnic, tribal and even familial ties than they are to the Afghan army, which the provincial Taliban commander exploited to negotiate surrender of many troops. Ali Yawar Adili, country director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, said that Afghan officials—including Ghani—never expected that the US would be halting logistical and air support to the Afghan forces. Afghan troops were heavily dependent on logistical and air support provided by the US and they were deeply shocked when US support was withdrawn. Elizabeth Threlkeld, a former US state department official, said that the Taliban's rapid advance and peaceful surrender of some Afghan army units had encouraged many others to follow suit. Vali Nasr also blamed Ghani for "fail[ing] from day one to create a political consensus in Kabul" to resist the Taliban.

General Sami Sadat said that while defending Lashkar Gah from Taliban forces, he was named as commander of the ANSF special forces by president Ashraf Ghani, effectively forcing him to stop leading his unit and arrive in Kabul on 15 August, by which time Sadat states that he "never even had a chance" of securing Kabul.

Local warlord loyalties

On 12 August, former US adviser Vali Nasr, said that there was "no kind of leadership that would give local warlords reasons for why they should resist the Taliban. So the more they see the Taliban victory is inevitable, the more the victory becomes inevitable, because they just cut their own deals with them".

US assessments

On 8 July, US President Joe Biden stated: "The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely."

On 23 June, the United States Intelligence Community estimated that the Afghan government could fall within the next six months following the US withdrawal. On 10 August, US officials revised the previous six month estimate, saying that it could happen much more quickly, and that some scenarios envisioned the fall of Kabul within 30 to 90 days. On 13 August, reports appeared that "senior Western diplomatic sources" expected the Taliban to enter Kabul within the next seven days.

On 8 July, US President Joe Biden speaking to reporters in a press conference, said that a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is not inevitable, stating, "the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped—as well-equipped as any army in the world—and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban". Biden said that the US intelligence community had not assessed that the Afghan government would likely collapse. When asked about whether there were parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam, the President replied:

"None whatsoever. Zero. What you had is—you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy—six, if I’m not mistaken. The Taliban is not the south—the North Vietnamese army. They’re not—they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the—of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable."

Biden added that "...the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely". On 15 August, during the entrance of the Taliban into Kabul, diplomats and staff were evacuated from the US embassy in Kabul via US Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters.

On 11 July, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said that the ANDSF "have much more capacity than they've ever had before" and, "they know how to defend their country". On 9 August, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko stated that the US military command "knew how bad the Afghan military was".

On 12 August, US officials said that the surprising speed of the Taliban offensive was connected to both structural and political issues, such as early under-investment in local governments, lack of sufficient nation building, societal structures in clans, topography, ghost soldiers and unequal quality of troops, as well as the recent peace agreement and amnesty of Taliban prisoners.

According to the Washington Post, the Taliban seizure is, "inextricably linked to Pakistan". According to the New York Times, "the Pakistani military waved a surge of new fighters across the border from sanctuaries inside Pakistan".

Predictions

Potential al-Qaeda resurgence

Main articles: ISIS-K and Haqqani network

According to a US defense official, the security vacuum left by the withdrawal of US military forces could create an opening for al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups to reorganize. The official added that, while the US would still maintain authority to strike al-Qaeda targets in Afghanistan, the lack of a robust US presence on the ground would hamper the ability to identify potential targets. The CENTCOM commander Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. said that he has not seen anything that would make him believe the Taliban would stop al-Qaeda from using Afghanistan to strengthen and rebuild.

British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said that the vacuum could give terrorist groups like al-Qaeda another chance for a safe haven.

On 8 August, the head of extremist monitoring group SITE, Rita Katz, said that the Taliban advance resembled the earlier days of the Syrian civil war amid al-Nusra Front's victories, "except now on a completely different scale, given the Taliban's horrifying momentum".

Kazakh political scientist Dosym Satpaev warned that a Taliban takeover could possibly pave a way for other fundamental Islamist forces in an attempt to form a merger state of Central Asia and Afghanistan.

Jaish-e-Mohammed

After the Taliban seizure of Afghanistan, many Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) cadres were released, the JeM and Taliban have held meetings and the JeM has been assured of all support in carrying out its terrorist activities in India. According to a Government of Pakistan person, Pakistan, "supported the Taliban when the latter was being hounded in Afghanistan, the militants said they would return the favour by helping Pakistan in making Kashmir a part of its country".

Aftermath

Civilian exodus

See also: Operation Devi Shakti and Afghan refugees

Afghans fleeing aboard a US Boeing C-17 Globemaster III during the Fall of Kabul, 15 August 2021. The Taliban offensive resulted in an exodus of Afghans

A US Marine escorting Afghan evacuees during the Kabul airlift, 19 August 2021

More than 300,000 Afghan civilians risk Taliban retaliation because they worked for the US government.

As of 17 August, there were about 11,000 American citizens stranded in Taliban-held Afghanistan.

In late July, hundreds of Afghan refugees began to cross into eastern Turkey from Iran. At least 1,500 migrants were detained along the Iranian border, and 200 Afghan migrants were intercepted by Turkey en route to Europe. Turkey announced the construction of a border barrier along the Iran–Turkey border, where many refugees cross into Turkey en route to Europe.

On 5 August, six European Union (EU) member states, including Germany, urged the European Commission to continue deporting rejected asylum seekers back to Afghanistan despite major advances by Taliban. A few days later, Germany and the Netherlands temporarily suspended the deportation of Afghan refugees as Taliban insurgents captured more territory.

On 13 August, the Canadian government announced that Canada will resettle more than 20,000 Afghan citizens from groups it considers likely targets of the Taliban. The United Kingdom said it will allow 20,000 Afghans to settle in the UK, and the US appears likely to relocate up to 30,000 Afghan SIV applicants into the United States. Australia promised to resettle more than 3,000 Afghan refugees. Germany said it will take in about 10,000 Afghans.

On 17 August, India announced that it will issue an emergency e-visa to all Afghan nationals who want to come to the country, having "already received requests from Afghan Sikh and Hindu community leaders". The visa will initially be valid for 6 months.

The US State Department issued a statement that relocation cases would be processed in third countries, citing Turkey as a possible venue. The US had not previously discussed this possibility with Turkey. According to Bloomberg News, Turkey responded negatively and "blasted the US for recommending that Afghans fearful of a vengeful Taliban seek asylum in America from third countries". Turkey already hosts around six million refugees of the Syrian Civil War, more than any other country, and officials said it does not have the capacity to absorb the wave of refugees from Afghanistan and that it was "irresponsible" of the US administration to make these types of plans without consultation or discussion.

When Kabul fell in mid-August, thousands of Afghans attempting to flee the country rushed to the airport. In desperation, several people clung to the side of a US military plane, falling to their deaths when the plane took off. US troops eventually had to fire warning shots to clear paths for the aircraft, which were evacuating Afghan government officials.

Equipment losses

According to a report published on the Oryx blog, since June, the Taliban captured 12 tanks (seven T-54s and five T-62s), 51 armoured fighting vehicles (46 M1117 ASVs, two M1117 Command & Controls and three M113 APCs), 61 mortars and artillery pieces (35 122mm D-30 howitzers, three 76 mm divisional gun M1942 (ZiS-3)s, one 120mm mortar, two 82mm M69 mortars, one 60mm mortar and 19 mortars of unknown origin), eight anti-aircraft guns (two 14.5mm KPV-1s and six 23mm ZU-23s), 16 helicopters (nine Mil Mi-17s, one Mil Mi-24V, four UH-60A BlackHawks and two MD 530Fs), six unmanned aerial vehicles (six Boeing Insitu ScanEagles), and 1,973 trucks, vehicles and jeeps from the Afghan armed forces. The Taliban also destroyed nine M1117 ASVs, four Mi-17s and three UH-60A BlackHawks, one DJI Mavic and 104 trucks, vehicles and jeeps. Oryx only counts destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available.

A US official told Reuters that while there are no definitive numbers yet, the current intelligence assessment was that the Taliban is believed to have captured more than 2,000 armoured vehicles and 40 aircraft. US officials said that while they are concerned about Taliban having access to the helicopters, the captured equipment is complicated to operate and requires a high level of maintenance. A former US General, Joseph Votel, said that the majority of the captured equipment was not equipped with any sensitive US technology.

Since 2 July, US aircraft attacked military equipment captured by the insurgents, destroying D30 howitzers, tanks, MRAPs and Humvees.

On 27 August, US Senator, and former Afghanistan war veteran, Jim Banks announced that the Taliban seized military equipment worth $85 billion from the Afghanistan Armed Forces. Although, According to the Washington Post, most of the $85 billion invested in the Afghan Military was not spent on equipment, such as guns, tanks, body armor, etc. Rather, these funds were used for training the Afghan forces and military personnel housing. The military equipment in Taliban control accounted to 75,000 vehicles, 200 aircraft and helicopters and 600,000 various small arms. Since the Taliban probably lack the capabilities to produce spare parts or replace the US equipment. It is expected the value and utility of the equipment with therefore decrease significantly.

International reactions

• “The disaster in Afghanistan was caused by the US and its allies,” said the Chinese state-run Global Times. The Communist Party People’s Daily flatteringly credited the Taliban’s victory to its supposed adoption of Mao Zedong’s “people’s war” tactic: rallying the support of the rural population, while drawing the enemy deep into the countryside.

• Imran Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, in a denunciation of English-language education in Pakistan, stated that Afghans have "broken the shackles of slavery".

• Russia's UN representative stated that it is time for national reconciliation, with law and order returning to the streets and of "the ending of many years of bloodshed". Russian President, Vladimir Putin said, "It's important not to allow terrorists to spill into neighbouring countries".

• US President, Joe Biden stated that he either had to stick to the deal his predecessor made with the Taliban and continue to pull out or send in more troops and risk their lives.

Protests and resistance

Main article: Panjshir conflict

Panjshir resistance

Main article: Panjshir resistance

Protest in Rotterdam against the Taliban's take over, 21 August 2021

After the fall of Kabul, former Northern Alliance members and anti-Taliban figures formed a military alliance called the Second Resistance, under the leadership of Ahmad Massoud and former Vice President Amrullah Saleh. They have based themselves in the Panjshir Valley, which was a major base of operations for the original Northern Alliance. On 17 August 2021, Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh declared himself caretaker President of Afghanistan in Panjshir Valley. With the fall of Kabul, former Northern Alliance members and other anti-Taliban forces based in Panjshir, led by Ahmad Massoud and former Vice President Amrullah Saleh, became the primary organized resistance to the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Afghan embassy in Tajikistan replaced their presidential portrait of Ghani with one of Saleh, and submitted a request to Interpol to have arrest warrants issued for Ghani, along with his chief advisor Fazel Mahmood and National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib, on charges of having stolen from the Afghan treasury.

Protests

Main article: 2021 Afghan protests

On 17 August, a small protest was held by several women in Kabul demanding equal rights for women, the first reported women's protest against the new regime. On 18 August, larger protests also attended by men emerged in three eastern Pashtun-dominated cities: Jalalabad, Khost, and Asadabad, with protestors waving the flag of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and taking down the Taliban flag. In Jalalabad, the Taliban opened fire, killing three and wounding over a dozen. On 19 August, demonstrations spread to various parts of Kabul, including one large protest near Kabul Airport where cars and people waved the flag of the republic, and another with over 200 people gathered near the presidential palace in Kabul before it was violently dispersed by the Taliban. Protests continued in Khost and Asadabad as well, with the Taliban using violence to disperse protests in both. In Asadabad, protests were reported as swelling to the hundreds.

See also

• Afghan Civil War (1928–1929) a similar uprising led by Emirate of Afghanistan against the reforms introduced by King Amanullah Khan
• History of Taliban
• List of 2021 Afghanistan attacks
• List of terrorist incidents in 2021
• War crimes by the Taliban
• War crimes in Afghanistan war (2001-2021)
• 1975 spring offensive and the Fall of Saigon

External links

• The Strategic Lessons unlearned from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan: Why the Afghan National Security Forces Will Not Hold, and the Implications for the US Army in Afghanistan by M. Chris Mason

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