July 6, 2021: More than 1,000 Afghan troops fled to neighboring Tajikistan on Monday after clashes with the Taliban, when insurgents seized control of the battlefield.
The deportation of troops resulted in another weekend of fighting in many parts of northern rural areas, where the Taliban have taken control of dozens of districts, raising fears that Afghan forces are in crisis. “They did not want to surrender. They called for help but their call was ignored,” said Abdul Basir, a soldier in the battalion in Badakhshan province, whose members had fled across the border.
The United States announced on Friday that it had handed over Bagram Air Base, the center of its operations – to Afghan security forces to effectively streamline operations in the country after nearly two decades of fighting. Tajikistan’s National Security Committee said 1,037 Afghan government soldiers had fled the former Soviet country “to save their lives” after clashes with the Taliban at night.
“Taking into account the principle of good neighbourliness and adhering to the position of non-interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan, the military personnel of the Afghan government forces were allowed to enter Tajik territory,” said the statement, published by Tajikistan’s state information agency.
The Afghan army had already entered Tajikistan after earlier clashes, which saw the Taliban take control of a key border crossing between the two countries. The Afghan government has vowed to retaliate in the north. Hamdullah Mohib, the country’s national security adviser, told Russia’s RIA news agency that an operation was “absolutely” in the works. Pressure is already mounting on supply lines, Afghan security forces are collapsing under Taliban attack, and several bases and outposts have surrendered to insurgents without firing a shot.
“Afghan forces have lost their morale,” said analyst Atta Noori in Kabul.
“They are confused, in almost every district that the Taliban capture, they send a team of elders to talk to the soldiers and get them to surrender.”
“It is an emergency situation for the Afghan government. They need to step up their counteroffensive as soon as possible,” he added.
The Taliban continued their offensive throughout the north over the weekend after the closure of Bagram airfield by the Americans, and also seized most of the provinces of Badakhshan and Takhar, where government forces Occupied a little more than the capitals. The speed and ease of the Taliban’s effective occupation of the provinces represents a major psychological blow to the Afghan government. Both provinces once served as strongholds of the Northern Alliance against the Taliban during the horrific civil war in the 1990s and were never ousted by militants.
The dire situation in the north was accompanied by reports that the Taliban were also inching closer to the provincial capitals in their southern strongholds of Kandahar and Helmand, with key districts on the outskirts of both cities taken by the group.
“We are so tired of this war. At least today the right thing was done, and one side should take control,” said Shir Mohammad Barekzai, a resident of Helmand’s Nawa district that was seized by the Taliban early Monday.
Since May 1 when the US military began its final withdrawal of about 2,500 troops, Afghan troops and the Taliban have clashed fiercely across the rugged countryside as peace talks in Doha stalled.
Despite the Taliban’s rapid gains, the United States has pressed ahead with its withdrawal in accordance with President Joe Biden’s decision to pull all forces from Afghanistan by this year’s 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
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