The Taliban movement continues its rapid advance on the ground throughout Afghanistan, and the movement's fighters were able to control large areas in the north and west.

Although the exact number of areas under the movement's control is not known, they are now believed to control more than a third of Afghanistan's 421 districts and district centres, spread over 34 provinces.

The movement controlled strategic areas, on the borders with Iran, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

It also controlled most of Badakhshan province, which includes the country's border with China, which is 76 kilometers long in a remote mountainous area.

To the west, Qal'at Naw, the capital of Badghis province, fell into the hands of the Taliban before it returned to government control. With the continuation of the fighting, the movement expanded its areas of influence in the south in provinces such as Helmand and Kandahar, two of its historical strongholds.

The Taliban appear to be on an unstoppable march towards "victory", but the capture and recapture of districts and cities indicates that the Afghan forces are not completely defeated, however, they are under severe pressure.

The scene raises many questions.. Why did what was presented as a decisive victory by the anti-Taliban forces backed by the United States 20 years ago turn into the current defeat?

And what are the Taliban targeting from their control of the land?

How did it change its military strategy?

What are its strengths?

What are the fears of tight control over the country?

An armored convoy of Afghan Special Forces is on its way to the front line in Ghorband district of Parwan district north of the capital Kabul (Reuters)

North first

What is remarkable about the field progress of the Taliban fighters on the ground was their progress in northern Afghanistan, which, since the outbreak of the civil war in the early 1990s, has been a stronghold of Taliban resistance, dominated by ethnic minorities in the country, and is the traditional stronghold of warlords allied with the United States.

With the US withdrawal nearing completion, the conflict in the north of the country intensified. From May 1 to early July, the Taliban captured more than 60 districts in 9 northern provinces and some areas fell easily.

The progress of the Taliban fighters in the north reflects the movement's desire to deal a preemptive strike to the strongholds of its traditional opposition there, and the escalation of Taliban attacks in northern Afghanistan indicates the movement's attempt to prevent the establishment of a second resistance, and it seems that it planned these attacks well and then facilitated their implementation.

The Taliban's memory, as they are keen to advance north, does not miss what they faced there in the late 1990s and early 2000s. After the movement had seized a large part of the country, the strongest and longest resistance to it at that time was in northern and central Afghanistan.

On the other hand, southern and eastern Afghanistan, along the Pakistani border, have been considered strongholds of the Taliban since its inception.

In the past 20 years of war in Afghanistan, it was the south of the country that caught the eye, Kandahar, the country's second largest city and the capital of a vast southern province of the same name.

It was the last major city to lose control of the Taliban in 2001, after the fall of Mazar Sharif, Kabul and Herat, and the fall of Kandahar was considered the end of the Taliban’s control over Afghanistan after the American invasion that overthrew the Taliban regime, and accused it of harboring the then al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and other figures in the organization linked to attacks September 11th in the United States.

Today, observers of the Afghan affairs see that the biggest mistake committed by the Afghan government forces is the concentration of reinforcements in the south, which made them fail to respond quickly and decisively to stop the Taliban raids in the north, which achieved an easy success there.

They also see that the north does not seem unified as it was in the past, and the parties opposed to the Taliban are not united in their positions and policies, and that some of them have contacts with the Taliban, in exchange for an amnesty for its leaders and their participation in the next government and state positions in certain proportions.

call for surrender


With its continuous field progress, the Taliban urged residents of cities to communicate with them, and Amir Khan Muttaki, head of the movement's "Dawa and Guidance Committee" - which oversees government forces that surrender to Taliban fighters - made an appeal to the residents, saying, "Now, the fighting from the mountains and deserts has reached The gates of the cities, the Mujahideen do not want to fight inside the cities, and it is better to use any possible channel to contact our Call and Guidance Committee, as this will spare their cities losses.”

This strategy is not new to the Taliban movement, as it was previously adopted, especially during its first rise to power in the nineties, and families send their young men to fight with the Taliban in a form of insurance and see that the quick surrender by the cities avoids punishment, while the very long resistance leads to massacres.

International warnings of a new wave of Afghan refugees and displaced persons (European)

strength elements

Western analyzes say that the Taliban's greatest strength lies in the fact that the movement has always had the support of Pakistan - a nuclear-armed country with a strong army - with a population of 216 million people, and its border with Afghanistan, which is 2,640 km, is the longest among the border countries of the six neighboring countries of Afghanistan. (Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and China) But Pakistan did not have many cards to put pressure on the Taliban.

Other strengths of the Taliban are the nucleus of experienced leaders and fighters rooted in the Pashtun community, which constitutes the largest ethnicity in Afghanistan ranging from 40% to 52% of the population.

American efforts have not succeeded in winning the hearts and minds of those in the south of the country. The central characteristic of Pashtun culture is that they hate foreigners who interfere in their country's affairs.

It seems that the Americans could not understand the Afghan character, or rather did not try to do so, content with some formal appearances, despite the hundreds of billions of dollars they spent there. The Afghan, as former head of the Pakistani intelligence service Hamid Gul says, "you can rent but cannot buy."

The saying of Gul - who died in 2015 at the age of 79 - is one of the keys to understanding the Afghan personality, especially since the late had a long practical experience in the Afghan issue, and formed part of the Islamic resistance against the Soviets when they invaded Afghanistan, and then contributed to the establishment of the Taliban movement when it was established in the middle of The nineties of the last century, and had previously predicted the continuation of the "insurgency" in Afghanistan as long as American soldiers there.

The Taliban reassures neighboring countries who are worried about their monopoly on power (Reuters)

Concern and warnings

In a new sign of concern about what will happen, France urged its citizens to leave Afghanistan, and announced that it was organizing a special flight next Saturday to evacuate them from Kabul, while Australia closed its embassy there, and the United States reduced the number of its embassy staff.

The United States, Russia, China and even Pakistan, neighboring Afghanistan, unanimously warned the Taliban that they should not impose their complete control over Afghanistan, and that they would be an international pariah.

In return, the Taliban pledged that it would not do so, and would not form a government alone.

The Taliban called on the other parties to sit at the negotiating table, and to agree on the first main point, which is the establishment of a government that governs by Islamic law, and then agree on the other points.

The movement has repeatedly stated that the Afghan government has not released all Taliban prisoners from its prisons, as thousands of them are still in Afghan prisons.

America withdrew after it got tired of its costly “eternal” war there, but that eternity will remain the main feature of the Afghan dilemma unless an agreement is reached in which all Afghans participate to form a government that represents all parties, and that satisfies the mosaic of ethnic communities, tribes and Afghan regions, to take off from the state of continuous bloody conflict 4 decades ago.