The "fleeing" type of US troop withdrawal leaves a "security vacuum"
-A perspective on the US responsibility behind the chaos in Afghanistan ②
The Afghan Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid said on social media on August 11 that the Taliban had captured Pulhumli, the capital of Baghlan Province in northern Afghanistan, and Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan Province.
Since the U.S. troops began to withdraw from Afghanistan on May 1, the Taliban have so far announced that they have captured 9 out of a total of 34 capital cities.
In response to the Taliban's offensive in the northern provinces, Afghan President Ghani rushed to the northern city of Balkh Province, Mazar-i-Sharif, on the 11th and hosted a security meeting to discuss and coordinate government forces and local armed forces to resist the Taliban.
The change in the battlefield situation in Afghanistan is rooted in the irresponsible "flee" withdrawal of the United States in Afghanistan.
The United States sent troops to Afghanistan in the name of anti-terrorism in 2001, which in fact further aggravated the original political disputes in Afghanistan; after discovering that it could not rely on the battlefield to solve the anti-terrorism issue, the Afghan government set aside peace talks and agreements with the Afghan Taliban alone, which harmed Afghanistan. The prestige of the current government has strengthened the political legitimacy of the Taliban both domestically and internationally in Afghanistan.
After the US Biden administration took office, it accelerated its withdrawal from Afghanistan. In some key areas, it evacuated itself without even coordinating with the Afghan security forces. The “security vacuum” left by the current situation in Afghanistan has created an extreme situation. Big uncertainty.
US media reported that in the two to three years following the withdrawal of international forces, Afghanistan may fall under the control of the Taliban to a large extent.
In fact, within just two months of the U.S. withdrawal, the Taliban’s total control area has doubled, surpassing the Afghan government.
In the recent period, the Afghan Taliban have attacked several provincial capital cities and key border towns, most of which are located on the eastern and northern borders of Afghanistan.
This situation shows that Atta’s current strategy of "North and South" and "Border first and then Central" is in contrast to the "South and North" and "Central and then Frontier" operations that swept Afghanistan in the mid to late 1990s. The policy has been significantly different.
In the 1990s, the Afghan Taliban, based in the southern Kandahar province, expanded all the way to the north. After defeating various warlords, they waited for the opportunity to seize the capital Kabul, and then continued to compress the space of the opposition military forces to the north until Afghanistan and its northern neighbors. The border areas of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
The main reason for adopting this strategy is that the Afghan Taliban was a political and military force dominated by Pashtuns in the south, and there was a competitive relationship with the Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras in northern Afghanistan at that time. Rising from the south and advancing to the north was a more reasonable choice in terms of the environment at that time.
However, in the recent offensive, the Afghan Taliban’s strategy is to attack the northern region first. For example, Kunduz is a city dominated by Tajiks and Uzbeks in Afghanistan.
This shows that the Afghan Taliban has broken through the traditional regional ethnic restrictions, and its political advantage has extended to many areas of Afghanistan.
In addition, in the past period of time, the Afghan Taliban mostly dominated the rural and remote mountainous areas, but the recent wars were mostly concentrated in the major provincial capitals. The scale of the siege forces gathered has become larger and larger, showing that the focus of military competition has gradually shifted from the rural areas and the remote mountainous areas. The remote mountainous area turns to the big city.
In the face of criticism from the international community for its "fleeing" troop withdrawal, the United States launched an air strike against Ata's military forces on the grounds that the Afghan Taliban had failed to comply with the peace agreement.
However, when there are no more troops stationed in Afghanistan, it is unlikely that the US military will mobilize air power to carry out air strikes to change the situation on the battlefield, and it is more like a posture to deal with the international community.
The White House claimed on the 10th that Afghanistan "government forces must fight for themselves and for the country."
This statement is just another explicit performance of "American Shaking the Pot".
Changes in the situation in Afghanistan affect the security of the surrounding areas.
On the one hand, the internal conflict in Afghanistan is likely to "spill" to neighboring countries, and neighboring countries have to pay close attention to the situation in Afghanistan and strengthen the deployment of troops in border areas; on the other hand, the regional chaos brought about by the war in Afghanistan is very likely to become a breeding ground. A hotbed of extreme forces.
In this regard, neighboring countries urgently need to work together to coordinate response to possible threats of terrorism and extremism.
(Author's unit: Middle East Institute of Northwestern University)
Wang Jin