While a lot of the focus this week in Afghanistan has been on which cities are falling to the Taliban, and which are likely next, some of the most important parts of the Taliban offensive come after the city itself is lost.
Kunduz fell over the weekend, but Wednesday, the Taliban took over the city’s airport. It’s a relative large airport by Afghanistan standards. The loss of the airport is significant because it is one of the Afghan Defense Ministry’s facilities for operation.
That was just part of the ongoing fall of metro Kunduz. Officials also reported that the army corps in the area had fallen “with all their equipment.” Exactly how much equipment this amounts to isn’t wholly clear, but it includes some vehicles, including a helicopter that was under repair.
Equipment isn’t all that was lost. The entire army corps surrendered outright, and hundreds of them were captured by the Taliban. What they intend to do with their prisoners is unclear, but this was just another Taliban victory where the Afghan military didn’t seriously try to resist.
So, the US taxpayers ended up supplying the Taliban via abandoned weapons. DC keeps on doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. .
FYI:
The Afghan “soldiers” are there solely for the paycheck. The country has been ravaged for twenty years, its economy, such as it was, ravaged as well, putting a vast number of its people in dire financial straits. Thus the willingness of young men to join the army. Economic necessity is the total motivation, “patriotism” has zero to do with it, and loyalty/support for a foreigner-installed corrupt puppet govt less than zero. So now, with “the writing clearly on the wall” reality dictates that it’s time to “realign” with the “incoming administration”. And so, predictably, “the Afghan Army” is evaporating before our eyes.
Saigon 2021.