Alwaght- On Sunday, the Afghan capital Kabul fell to the Taliban to the surprise of the world, with the militant fighters entering the last and most important city of Afghanistan without facing any resistance. This was while fast advances of the Taliban and seizure of Kabul in a single day was unthinkable even with most pessimistic views about resistance of the army and the security forces.
Earlier, Western intelligence agencies and the military commanders and politicians estimated that the Afghan military might resist the Taliban's attempt to seize Kabul for about three weeks, as Western countries have not yet been able to evacuate their nationals and embassy staff. This has led to a major intelligence and military failure for the US in particular and the West in general. What was the reason behind such an easy fall of Kabul?
Wrong intelligence estimations, surprise, or a plot?
Earlier in July, the US intelligence community had estimated that Kabul could fall within six months, but the latest estimate published recently by the Washington Post, citing US military intelligence sources, claimed that Kabul could fall within 90 days or even 30 days.
Now the rapid collapse of the Afghan government and the resulting chaos have drawn much criticism from Republicans to Biden, attributing the defeat to him. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called the rush of American diplomats "embarrassing."
The US and other Western countries did not even have the opportunity to withdraw their nationals from Afghanistan, so they sent troops to evacuate the embassies as soon as possible.
"At present we are completing a series of steps to secure the Hamid Karzai International Airport to enable the safe departure of U.S. and allied personnel from Afghanistan via civilian and military flights," the Pentagon and the State Department said in a joint statement Sunday. Biden ordered another 1,000 troops to enter Kabul to ensure their evacuation.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: "We saw that Afghanistan army couldn't defend the country. This happened more quickly than we anticipated."
Now, amid growing criticism against the US government and demonstration of the big defeat of the US military and intelligence defeat in Afghanistan that damages the American face as a global superpower on the world arena, some critics of the fast US withdrawal from Afghanistan cast doubt on the credibility of the information that suggest the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization cannot reconstitute in Afghanistan. In this regard, General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly told senators on Sunday that officials expect to change their earlier assessments about the rate at which terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda are expected to rise in Afghanistan in light of the Taliban taking power in the country. People familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that Milley and other administration officials told senators that the US intelligence community is now working to create a new timeliness. This means that Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups could reorganize faster that anticipated.
Meanwhile, there are other reports that US intelligence agencies in their latest estimates of the Taliban's advance had secretly warned of the possibility of Kabul falling, but these warnings were ignored by Biden and his team, an issue that could reinforce speculation that the US plan was basically the rapid fall of Kabul and the overthrow of the government and Taliban domination of the situation, contrary to the propaganda shows of the recent Doha talks and the declaration of support for the Afghan army in case of Taliban advances.
Undoubtedly, an important part of the failure of the Afghan army and security forces to resist the Taliban militants should be linked to the type of organization, training and efficiency of the Afghan military forces, which has been the responsibility of NATO and the US for the past 20 years. The White House strategy is based on maintaining the dependence of the armies of the host countries on the American bases for their continued presence. In fact, as long as the US pursued a strategy of military presence in Afghanistan, it managed the process in such a way that government forces could not defeat the Taliban independently and there was always a need for foreign troops in Afghanistan. Now that the US strategy has changed, the lack of self-confidence and fear of the Taliban's advances has suddenly confused the Afghan leaders and led to the collapse of the Afghan army.
Also, over the past two decades, a number of senior leaders of the Afghanistan resistance in the north have been suspiciously assassinated, making local resistance to the Taliban insurgency in the north and center of the country very difficult. Burhahanuddin Rabbani, General Dawood Dawood, General Shah Jahan Nouri, General Razegh, Sayed Mustafa Kazemi, General Sayed Khayli, and Samangani all were companions to Ahmad Shah Masoud, the commander of the northern resistance who himself was assassinated in 2001. In the absence of these figures, there is not a powerful leader with the power to mobilize the largely confused people against the terrorists. In the purge of the anti-terror leaders there are traces of sectarian leaders close to the collapsed government and the foreign intelligence services.
In the meantime, of course, the widespread corruption in the structure of the Afghan security forces should not be overlooked, which is another part of the failure of the US state-building project in this country. The Washington Post reported that the Taliban had offered bribes to Kabul government and Afghan army officials in early 2020 to surrender or hand over their weapons, and within a year and a half the meetings reached provincial and provincial levels, leading to surrender of a number of government troops.
The power gain of the Taliban over the past two years has been astonishing. Two years ago, following the announcement of the death of the group's longtime leader, Mullah Omar, and the subsequent deaths of his successors, Mullah Akhtar Mansour and Mullah Hebatullah Akhundzadeh, the Taliban split into factions. But the US plan for the release of prominent figures of the group, such as Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was in Pakistani prisons, gave the group new breath.
The people's discontentment with Western occupation and disrespect of the national independence by the Americans, which is marked by the White House dictating its orders to the Kabul leaders, and also public anger with the deteriorating living conditions and also rife corruption among the officials made people withhold their support from the government, something motivated the Taliban to seize the opportunity to make quick advances.
