The Taliban Just Captured Their First Major City in 14 Years

It should be abundantly clear now that our military’s mission in Afghanistan is following the same exact path as their mission in Iraq. After we steamrolled through their country, we were met with a prolonged resistance movement that is now slowly retaking lost territory, as our military tries to make its exit without losing face.

While there is still a small US military presence lingering in Afghanistan, we pulled out of that nation in much the same way that we pulled out of Iraq. We managed to suppress the insurgents long enough to claim a victory, and then left behind a wildly corrupt system that could not protect its people from the crazies in their midst (or in the case of Iraq and Syria, the crazies that we trained and funded). Now these people are overrunning the ill-equipped and morally bankrupt forces that we left in charge.

Over the weekend, the Taliban managed to deliver a devastating blow to Afghan state forces by capturing a major city in the northern province of Kunduz. The attack completely overwhelmed security forces, and caused U.N. and Afghan officials to flee the city.

Kunduz has “collapsed” into Taliban control, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told the Associated Press.

Afghan security officials said government forces have withdrawn in attempts to avoid civilian casualties and that they are planning a counteroffensive to regain Kunduz — a city that has already been the target of Taliban attacks twice this year.

“We are prepared, and measures have been taken to recapture the city,” the deputy interior minister, Ayoub Salangi, told reporters.

Both Afghan government leaders and the U.S.-led coalition view the defense of Kunduz as a key test of whether security forces could prevent the Taliban from expanding its reach in the country.

One Afghan official said Taliban fighters took control of all major government buildings in the city and that security forces had retrenched to try to defend the airport of the provincial capital, about 150 miles north of Kabul in a region that was once relatively stable.

“The defense line for government is now near the airport” on the outskirts of Kunduz, said Amruddin Wali, a member of the provincial council. “The Taliban has taken key government buildings such as the police and intelligence headquarters and burned down some of them.”

The successful attack is important to the Taliban for several reasons. For a force that was long restricted to Afghanistan’s mountainous southern frontier, this is one of the first northern provinces that they’ve been able to make any significant progress in, and it’s a heavily trafficked trade hub that connects to the rest of the northern provinces.

But more importantly, the City of Kunduz is the first provincial capital that the Taliban has been able to capture since 2001. For a force that was once mired in the isolated pockets of Afghanistan’s countryside, this is both a major strategic, and symbolic victory. As for how this happened, it’s the same story you’ve probably heard in other countries that have been occupied by US forces. It’s not just that the Taliban fighters may be superior to our local proxies, it’s that our local proxies are incompetent and have lost the trust of the native population.

The Afghan security forces are stretched thin as they deal with multiple attacks all over the country.

Bad governance in Kunduz is also a key problem. Incompetence and intimidation by some local officials have alienated many in the province.

Kunduz police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Husaini told the BBC’s Mahfouz Zubaide that militants had captured the jail in Kunduz and freed about 500 prisoners, including members of the Taliban.

One of the freed prisoners told the BBC: “It was about 4pm when the Taliban entered the jail and started fighting with police. After a few minutes the police escaped and the Taliban fighters opened all the cells and all the prisoners rushed out.”

Considering the fact that our allies in Afghanistan are a bunch of corrupt, child molesting drug lords, somehow I doubt that the government we built is going to last for very long. The Taliban may be evil, but for many Afghans they are the lesser of two evils. Since no system can stand without the support of its people, the fall of our twisted proxy government is all but guaranteed. ISIS may or may not march on Baghdad in the near future, but in Afghanistan, it’s just a matter of time before Kabul falls. The loss of Kunduz is just the first sign of this eventuality.