by JOHN CHERIAN
Afghan security forces stand guard at the main gate of a prison in Kunduz after retaking the city from the Taliban on October 8. The Taliban had set free as many as 600 prisoners from the city’s two prisons. PHOTO/Nasir Waqif/AFP
The fortnight-long capture and occupation of the northern Afghan city of Kunduz by the Taliban has further exposed the frailty of the central government in Kabul. Kunduz, with a population of more than 300,000, is the fifth largest city in Afghanistan. The Taliban attack caught by surprise the Afghan security forces, trained and equipped by the West. On September 28, a few hundred Taliban fighters attacked the city from different directions and quickly captured it. According to reports, they had many supporters who had already infiltrated the city. The 7,000-strong Afghan security forces fled the city leaving their weaponry behind. One of the first things the Taliban did was to empty the city’s two prisons. As many as 600 prisoners, including 144 Taliban fighters, were set free.
Kunduz became the first major Afghan city to be recaptured, albeit briefly, by the Taliban after they were ousted from power in 2001 following the invasion of Afghanistan by the United States. The city is strategically located in proximity to Central Asia and China. The battle for Kunduz was one of the bloodiest witnessed during the U.S.-led military campaign in 2001. Thousands of Taliban fighters perished in the fight, many of them tragically after they were captured and herded into containers by militias under the control of Afghan warlords such as Rashid Dostum.
The Taliban announced on October 13 that it was withdrawing from Kunduz, stating that holding on to the city was “an unnecessary waste of ammunition”. In a statement it said that it was in its “best military interest to fortify the trenches surrounding the city rather than keeping the city”. U.S. military observers have said that the Taliban fought as a disciplined force in Kunduz. It was adept at using captured U.S.-supplied armoured vehicles and high-tech sniper equipment. Much of the rural area in Kunduz province has been under the control of the Taliban since the beginning of the year.
The Taliban retreated from the city after intensive aerial bombing by the U.S. Air Force and the participation of the American Special Forces on the ground. The Taliban has said that it will focus on taking over other cities. There is already considerable Taliban pressure on Ghazni city. The Taliban has surrounded the area, disrupting vehicular traffic on the highway. Pul-i-Khumri to the south and Badakshan province are also under serious military threat from the Taliban. Taliban attacks have become frequent in Faryab province in north-eastern Afghanistan and also in Helmand and Oruzgan provinces in the south. Civilians from these parts are fleeing to safer places.
The United Nations recently closed four of its 13 regional offices in the country, citing security concerns. It has classified half of the country’s districts as “high risk” and “extremely risky” for the first time since 2001. Civilians are continuing to leave Kunduz fearing for their safety. It is the only city in the northern part of the country that has a majority Pashtun population. There is a fear that the government forces, comprising mainly non-Pashtun conscripts, may blame the Pashtun population for their military debacle and exact revenge. The Taliban derives most of its support from the Pashtuns, who constitute more than 40 per cent of the country’s population. The data provided by the U.N., however, show that the Taliban influence has spread to non-Pashtun areas that were once the stronghold of the Northern Alliance. The situation on the ground in Afghanistan did not tally with the U.S. military’s relatively optimistic assessment. General John F. Campbell, the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, told the U.S. Congress in the first week of October that the Afghan government was in control of all the provincial capitals, the district centres and the main Highway One. Campbell is known in Kabul as the “de facto Defence Minister of Afghanistan”. Many district headquarters, according to Afghan officials themselves, are on the verge of falling to the Taliban. Haroun Mir, the head of the Centre for Research and Policy Studies in Kabul, told an American newspaper that “what happened in Kunduz can happen anywhere. It can even happen in a city like Kabul.”
Frontline for more