The United States and its allies began their withdrawal from Afghanistan in May after more than 19 years of war against the Taliban. Washington aims to complete the withdrawal by the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the day that formally triggered the invasion of Afghanistan and the start of the global war on terror. The planned aim of the war was to ensure that Afghanistan would never again serve as a base for Islamic terrorists to retreat to and use worldwide – this aim was not achieved in any case. In circles close to the Afghan government, after the so-called “Doha Agreement” of the Trump administration with the Taliban, there was talk of the “most irresponsible and selfish” thing America could have done to its Afghan partners. The government in Kabul was not part of the secret negotiations held in Qatar until February 2020. The administration of the new US President Joe Biden is likely to have accelerated the withdrawal enshrined therein, with Biden saying publicly: “It’s time to end America’s longest war. It’s time for the American troops to come home. It is not possible to keep extending or increasing the military presence in the expectation that ideal conditions will be created for withdrawal. Although we will have no further military involvement in Afghanistan, our diplomatic and humanitarian work will continue.”
Nevertheless, in view of the recent increase in violence by the radical Islamic Taliban, Washington is considering a slower withdrawal of its troops from the country. “The Department of Defense is constantly monitoring the situation on the ground and is prepared to respond flexibly,” said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby in Washington on June 28. So far, more than 2,400 American soldiers have died in the fighting and 20,000 have been injured. According to various media reports, around 47,000 civilians and tens of thousands of Afghan security forces have also died. Afghan army “disintegrating”
With the Taliban now in control of several districts across the country, US intelligence estimates suggest that the country’s civilian government could be defeated by the terrorist group within months of the withdrawal of US forces. The top US general in Afghanistan, Austin Miller, has warned in the New York Times that the escalating violence could lead to civil war. Afghanistan’s communist government also quickly lost support after the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, even though President Mohammed Najibullah was able to hold on in Kabul for another three years (executed by the Taliban in 1996). Local rulers and tribal warlords such as General Abdul Rashid Dostum and Ismail Khan do not have the means to put up serious or prolonged resistance to the Taliban. Moreover, it is to be feared that these same local rulers are simply waiting for the collapse of the Afghan army in order to fill the power vacuum – possibly in local agreements with the Taliban. In any case, it is significant that the Hazara tribe recently asked the local militia commander Abdul Ghani Alipour for protection – and not the government or the army – after a devastating attack in which the majority of the victims were schoolgirls (the Taliban deny authorship). In anticipation of a possible collapse of the government, the Afghan National Army, equipped by the USA and other Western countries to the tune of billions of US dollars, is losing parts of its military equipment and weapons to the radical Islamic Taliban at an alarming rate. At the same time, a number of entire districts have recently fallen to the Taliban, as the terrorist group intensified its offensive after the agreed deadline of May 1 passed without the US troops having left the country. They therefore went on the offensive against the government troops and most recently secured the province bordering Kabul to the north, the country’s second largest dam and northern border crossings with Turkmenistan, for example. Local Afghan government defense forces in some districts are “evaporating” in the face of Taliban pressure – sometimes without a fight. The Deutsche Presse-Agentur quoted a soldier who reported that his unit has been in a “state of shock” since the announcement of the US withdrawal. Only a few special forces are in a position to continue the fight against the holy warriors. This is now also reported in great detail in theopen source investigation reportpublished on the Oryx blog of the two Dutch military analysts Stijn Mitzer and Joost Oliemans, which is recognized by various US media (Forbes, …).
The blog was recognized in 2020 for its detailed open-source investigation into the loss of equipment on both sides of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
According to Mitzer and Oliemans, they found photographic and video evidence that a total of 715 light vehicles had fallen into Taliban hands in June, with a further 65 destroyed. According to the report, further large quantities of Western military equipment donated or sold to Afghanistan to help the country fight the Taliban could instead fall into the hands of this group. In 2018, Afghan forces are said to have operated 26,000 vehicles, including 13,000 Humvees of various brands, while Mitzer writes that a total of as many as 25,000 Humvees have been brought to Afghanistan by 2021. During the recent intensified fighting, the Afghan government typically lost 100 Humvees per week. In the week up to July 2, for example, there were 2 x M1117, 1 x ZU-23, 3 x SGrw, 3 x M1151 HMMWV, 12 x M1152 HMMWV, 7 x Ford Ranger, 4 x Navistar trucks and dozens of other armored vehicles and artillery systems (including equipment destroyed in combat). German Armed Forces and Bundesheer withdrawal
A few days ago, the last soldiers of the German Armed Forces also left Afghanistan after almost 20 years of deployment. Over the entire period, around 150,000 Bundeswehr soldiers were deployed in the Hindu Kush, many of them several times. 59 German soldiers lost their lives in the country, 35 of them were killed in action or by attacks. The Bundeswehr declared that it would transfer around 800 container loads of material back to Germany, including vehicles, helicopters, weapons and ammunition. The multinational field camp in Mazar-i-Sharif, which was run by the Bundeswehr, had recently been reinforced with mortars to counter Taliban attacks during the withdrawal phase. The withdrawal of the 14 Austrian members of the Austrian Armed Forces from Afghanistan under Lieutenant Colonel Michael Grafl – he reported that buildings had been secured with sandbags and concrete blocks in order to provide the soldiers with the best possible protection until the end – is due to be completed in July.
