In Afghanistan, the Taliban has been gaining ground faster than expected, capturing one province after another. He is now in the process of capturing the federal capital, Kabul. Foreign media have reported that Taliban fighters have entered the outskirts of Kabul and are in talks to seize power without violence.
Kabul was just a few days away from the Taliban's capture of Kandahar, the country's second-largest and most strategically important city. After the Taliban captured Jalalabad on Sunday without a fight, the Afghan government's grip on Kabul appears to be limited and it is now trapped.
However, Afghan government officials say they are still fighting the Taliban. Vice President Amrullah Saleh said they were fighting hard against the Taliban and were proud of the country's security forces.
But while Afghan officials have shown confidence, others are not. The United States has sent 3,000 troops to partially evacuate the US embassy and evacuate its staff. Other countries are trying to evacuate their embassy staff and other citizens safely. This means that the Afghan government and its security forces have completely failed.
Over the past two decades, the United States has spent अर्ब 83 billion on weapons, equipment, and training for Afghan security forces. But as Afghan security forces surrender to the Taliban in one area after another, the money seems to have flowed into the river.
This begs the question: how did the Taliban gain control of so much of the country so quickly? Although the United States said last week that it would take control of Kabul within six months at most, there are signs that Kabul will fall to the Taliban in less than six days.
On paper, however, the Taliban should be a much weaker force than the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF). According to a recent report by the US government's watchdog, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the Afghan security forces have 3699 security personnel. It includes officers and youths of the Army, Police, and Air Force. As Afghanistan is a landlocked country, it does not have a navy.
About 20 percent of the Afghan security forces are specially trained special security commandos who can defeat the Taliban. There are also paramilitary groups trained by the US Central Intelligence Agency. In addition, warlords in different parts of the country have their own fighters.
According to the same cigar report, the Taliban have about 75,000 fighters. That is less than a third of the Taliban fighters compared to the Afghan security forces.
But Professor Farrell, a professor at the Texas National Security Review-Journal, wrote that the Taliban movement was united by religious education and past military experience. The Taliban (Pashto-speaking students) was formed from a network of Deobandi madrassas in Pakistan. The students were recruited to fight in the 1980s after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.
But unlike other mujahideen with the sole purpose of fleeing Soviet troops, Taliban fighters resorted to religious jihad. The strong bond of religion united them, and together with the Mujahideen, they gained a hard experience of war. As a result, they became more and more powerful.
When the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the Taliban retreated, not lost. They had a strong network in villages across the country. Although the presence and influence of the liberal-ruled Afghan government in urban areas was to some extent, the Taliban's influence remained in rural areas.
In addition, the treatment of Afghan civilians by US and foreign troops has made the general public more sympathetic to the Taliban. In Afghanistan, it is not allowed to enter any house without the permission of the housewife. But in the name of finding terrorists hiding, foreign troops ransacked Afghan homes and violated women's privacy. This fueled the general Afghan hatred of foreign troops and was used by the Taliban to increase its influence.
In addition, the foreign-backed Afghan government's poor management capacity has strengthened the Taliban. Although the United States and other countries have poured billions of dollars, most of it has been spent by middlemen. Ordinary Afghans were forced to pay large bribes to get government jobs.
This disease of corruption also pervaded the Afghan security forces. Various investigations have shown that army officers fill their own pockets by showing the names of soldiers who have not been recruited. There were and still are a large number of police and soldiers whose names appear on the salary sheets but who are not real people or who never show up. So, as mentioned above, the number of Afghan security forces is said to be 300,000, but the actual number of security personnel is much less than that.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) has found that in addition to the high-ranking officials' salaries in the name of non-existent people, they also have to fill their own pockets by deducting the salaries of lower-ranking soldiers. How can an army or a police officer fight with his mind when he is at the forefront of the battlefield and his life is in danger and his salary is not paid?
Analysts say the level of combat capability between the Taliban and the Afghan army is also uneven. US President Joe Biden has said that the Afghan army is more well-trained, better equipped, and more capable of warfare than the Taliban.
But the reality is that only about 56,000 commandos were found at such a high level. The other soldiers had no motivation to fight in the war and only seemed to go to work. As evidenced by the fact that the Afghan security forces only repulsed the Taliban's attack, they did not advance much by attacking the Taliban themselves.
In some places, the Taliban have been forced to retreat by special commando forces, but there have been numerous instances where other troops have not been able to take advantage of the situation.
And the Afghan security forces have been forced to provide supplies. As the Taliban occupy rural areas, they control almost all of the country's highways. In such a situation, it is difficult for the Afghan army to deliver arms and ammunition to the battlefield by land. The Air Force has to rely on thousands of military and police stations and checkpoints across the country to deliver weapons.
Should the air force drop bombs on Taliban bases or deliver supplies to its troops? The Air Force has been burdened with extra load and has not been able to fully engage in the war.
Undeterred, Afghan soldiers and police are fleeing with sophisticated weapons from abroad. The Taliban are gaining more success in the war by seizing the same weapon. This is what happened now. The same thing had happened before.
An investigative report published four years ago in The New York Times states that weapons provided by the United States to the Afghan army are falling into the hands of the Taliban. In other words, the Taliban were the ones who provided the most sophisticated weapons to those in the Afghan army who were sympathetic to the Taliban. The Taliban have increased their power by acquiring American weapons without spending a single penny.
Where does the Taliban raise money to cover the cost of so many fighters? According to a report in Voice of America News, the Taliban raise between करोड 300 million and ६ 1.6 billion a year.
According to a report released by the United Nations last June, most of the Taliban's money comes from criminal activities, including opium production, drug trafficking, security payments, and ransoms. And the rich in the Gulf have been giving money to the Taliban. Some analysts also say that Pakistan has been paying large sums of money to the Taliban.
According to a secret NATO report released by Radio Free Europe, the Taliban have been making millions of dollars from mining. He has also been earning money through foreign aid, various exports, and the real estate business.
