Already Rejected Turkey’s Position- Will Not Allow Other Foreign Forces to Remain in Afghanistan
Top US military official say Complete Taliban takeover is possible
Reeling from a surge in battlefield losses, Afghanistan’s military is overhauling its war strategy against the Taliban to concentrate forces around the most critical areas like Kabul and other cities, border crossings and vital infrastructure, Afghan and U.S. officials say.
Taliban insurgents are gaining control of more and more territory, which the Pentagon estimated on Wednesday now extends to over half of half Afghanistan’s district centers. The Taliban are also putting pressure on the outskirts of half of the provincial capitals, trying to isolate them.
U.S. intelligence assessments have warned that the Afghan government could fall in as little as six months, U.S. officials told Reuters.
Afghanistan’s borders with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran, or about 90 per cent of the border, are under our control,” Zabihullah Mujahid told the RIA Novosti news agency, a claim that could not be independently verified.
Turkey’s position rejected
“We have already rejected Turkey’s position and said that after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan we will not allow other foreign forces to remain in the country under any pretext,” Mujahid said.
Ex-Soviet Tajikistan, on Afghanistan’s border, held a large-scale military inspection – the first of its kind in the country’s 30-year history.
The Taliban’s offensives in recent weeks have forced Afghan refugees and government troops to make their way across the Tajik border.
Russia, which maintains military bases in Central Asia, said it would stage military drills with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan near the border with Afghanistan next month.
Meanwhile, US’s top military officer offered a glum assessment of the security situation in Afghanistan, saying the Taliban had seized “strategic momentum” over Afghan military forces who were falling back to prioritize the protection of important cities, including Kabul, the capital.
The comments by General Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, echoed mounting reports from the ground in Afghanistan. But his sober, almost clinical, account of recent Taliban gains hammered home the point.
“There’s a possibility of a complete Taliban takeover, or the possibility of any number of other scenarios,” Milley said. “I don’t think the end game is yet written.”
“Strategic momentum appears to be sort of with the Taliban,” he said. “There clearly is a narrative out there that the Taliban are winning. In fact, they are propagating an inevitable victory on their behalf.
But Milley, who appeared alongside Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin in their first joint news conference since May 6, sought to reassure the Afghan government that the United States would continue to provide humanitarian and security assistance from afar.
Both Milley and Austin put responsibility for the country’s fate on Afghans and their leaders, not the Biden administration. Austin said that US airstrikes after August 31, the military withdrawal deadline, would be reserved for Al Qaida and other terrorist targets, not Taliban fighters attacking Afghan forces.
“This is going to be a test now of the will and leadership of the Afghan people, the Afghan security forces and the government of Afghanistan,” Milley said.
In response to the Taliban offensives, hundreds of Afghan troops have surrendered, giving up their US-supplied equipment and fleeing, sometimes into neighbouring countries. Afghan government counterattacks have had limited success.
(With Inputs From Agencies)