WHERE WAS THE AMERICAN TRAINED AND EQUIPPED AFGHAN ARMY? ..... IN ADDITION TO THEIR MOPEDS, THE TALIBAN FIGHTERS ARE NOW USING AMERICAN COMBAT VEHICLES

After two decades and billions spent, Afghan government collapses as Taliban blitzkrieg takes Kabul

 

By Deirdre Shesgreen and Michael Collins

 

USA TODAY

August 15, 2021

 

Taliban militants were pictured inside the Presidential Palace in Kabul after the Afghan president fled the country

 

In a swift and stunning rout, Taliban fighters seized control of Afghanistan’s capital on Sunday, completing their sweep of the besieged nation as the Afghan government collapsed after two decades of efforts by the U.S. to reshape the region as part of its “war on terror.”

Embattled President Ashraf Ghani fled the country as the Taliban entered the capital city of Kabul, and American troops scrambled to evacuate thousands of U.S. diplomats and Afghans from the U.S. Embassy.

The Taliban, which for hours had been in the outskirts of Kabul, announced soon after it would move farther into a city gripped by panic throughout the day as helicopters raced overhead to evacuate personnel from the U.S. Embassy. Smoke rose near the compound as staff destroyed important documents. Several other Western missions also prepared to pull their people out.

The Taliban is soon expected to declare the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from the presidential palace in Kabul, an official told the Associated Press.

In Washington, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met via videoconference with their national security team to hear updates on the drawdown of civilian personnel in Afghanistan and the evacuation of allies who worked alongside the U.S. government.

 

The fall of Kabul marked the final chapter of America's longest war, which began after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks masterminded by al-Qaida's Osama bin Laden, then harbored by the Taliban government. A U.S.-led invasion forced the Taliban to retreat.

For some, the U.S. pullout was a reminder of America’s ignominious withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975, which ended with iconic images of U.S. helicopters evacuating Americans from the roof of the embassy in Saigon.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken flatly rejected such comparisons. "This is manifestly not Saigon," Blinken argued, characterizing the drawdown of embassy and other personnel as "very deliberate."

Still, analysts predicted that history would view the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan as a failure.

“On day one, we go in and the Taliban is in charge. Twenty years later, the Taliban is back in charge,” said Jack Weinstein, a former Pentagon official and expert on international security.

“I don’t know how you couch that as a victory,” he said.

 

 

            Chinook helicopter evacuates US embassy staff in Kabul 

 

Caught off guard

Though Kabul had been expected to fall, the speed of its collapse clearly caught the Biden administration off guard. 

Biden set an Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan and bring an end to the 20-year conflict. Just last week, an American military assessment estimated it would be a month before the capital would come under insurgent pressure.

Defying expectations, the Taliban seized nearly all of Afghanistan in a short time, despite the hundreds of billions of dollars spent by the U.S. and NATO over nearly two decades to build up Afghan security forces. Afghan security forces were defeated by the Taliban or fled much of the country, even though they had some air support from the U.S. military.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul warned on Sunday that the security situation in Afghanistan was deteriorating and instructed American citizens to "shelter in place" amid reports of gunfire at the airport in Afghanistan's capital. The embassy's security alert came as American troops were in the midst of evacuating all diplomatic staff from the embassy to the airport and as the Taliban entered Kabul, seemingly poised to take over the government. 

President Ghani flew out of the country, according to multiple media outlets.

Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the Afghan National Reconciliation Council, later confirmed in an online video that Ghani had left. “The former president of Afghanistan left Afghanistan, leaving the country in this difficult situation," Abdullah said. "God should hold him accountable.”

Afghans fearing that the Taliban would reimpose the kind of brutal rule that all but eliminated women’s rights rushed to leave the country, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings, the AP reported.