By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
August 2, 2021
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on August 2 blamed Washington’s “sudden” decision about its troop withdrawal for the current insecurity in his country, as government troops battled Taliban militants for control of a southern provincial capital following weekend assaults on urban centers in a major escalation.
Fighting raged in Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province’s capital, where the Taliban launched a coordinated offensive on the city center just hours after the government announced the deployment of hundreds of special forces to the area.
Taliban fighters also continued attacks on least two other provincial capitals overnight — Kandahar, also in the south, and Herat in western Afghanistan — after a weekend of heavy fighting that saw thousands of civilians flee the violence.
“The reason for our current situation is that the decision was taken abruptly,” Ghani told a joint session of parliament.
He blamed “a sudden decision on the withdrawal of the international troops” and said he had warned Washington of such “consequences.”
But he said his government had a plan to bring conditions under control within six months and that the United States supported the scheme.
Fighting has intensified since early May amid an accelerated withdrawal of U.S. forces scheduled to be completed by the end of August and an ongoing stalemate in intra-Afghan talks between Kabul and the Taliban.
Taliban militants have captured dozens of districts and border regions as government forces said they were focusing their efforts on more populated areas.
The United States agreed with the Taliban in early 2020 to withdraw its troops earlier this year in exchange for assurances against allowing Afghan territory to be used for terrorism, but U.S. President Joe Biden pushed back the deadline for a pullout after he was inaugurated in January.
Helmand Province was one of the major focal points of the waning U.S. and British military campaign in Afghanistan.
“Afghan forces on the ground and by air strikes repelled the attack,” the military in Helmand said of the offensive on Lashkar Gah.
Helmand, with its vast poppy fields, provides most of the opium for the international heroin trade — making it a lucrative source of tax and cash for the Taliban’s war chest.
The loss of the Helmand capital would also be a massive strategic and psychological blow for the Kabul government, which has already lost much of the rural countryside to the Taliban over the summer.
Fighting has also been raging in Herat, where a spokesman for the provincial governor told RFE/RL that ground operations and air strikes continue against the militants.
Jailani Farhad, said the militants suffered heavy casualties during the operations, which were joined by hundreds of Afghan commandos.
“As a result of the clearance operation by the Afghan joint forces, 100 Taliban militants were killed and several others injured,” Farhad said.
Aref Jalali, the head doctor of Herat Central Hospital, says 19 bodies, including four civilians, and 78 wounded, including 48 civilians, were transferred to the hospital on August 1.
Heavy fighting was also reported in some districts of Kandahar and on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Kandahar City.
Kandahar’s airport came under a Taliban rocket attack that damaged the runway overnight on July 31, leading to the suspension of flights for several hours.
The airport is vital to maintaining the logistics and air support needed to keep the Taliban from overrunning the city, while also providing aerial cover for large tracts of southern Afghanistan — including Lashkar Gah.
Kabul has repeatedly dismissed the militants’ steady gains over the summer as lacking strategic value but has largely failed to reverse their momentum. The loss of government control included several border crossings into neighboring Central Asian states to the north and Pakistan to the south.
Hundreds of Afghans, including police and government troops, have fled the country in recent weeks and taken refuge in Tajikistan and neighboring Uzbekistan amid the Taliban offensive.
Russia has announced joint military drills from August 5-10 at Tajikistan’s and Uzbekistan’s borders with Afghanistan. In a last-minute announcement, Moscow said on August 2 that it will send 1,800 soldiers to the drills, instead of 1,000 as initially planned. More than 2,500 troops would be involved in total.
Russia will also use twice as much military hardware in the drills as originally planned, Interfax news agency reported on August 2, citing the Defense Ministry.
Ghani told lawmakers in Kabul on August 2, one day after calling for a “countrywide mobilization,” that “we have had an unexpected situation in the last three months.”
The Taliban will not return to substantive peace talks unless the worsening security situation is curbed, Ghani warned.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on August 2 dismissed Ghani’s statements as “nonsense, an attempt to control his fears” in the face of the government’s “dire situation.”
“Declarations of war, accusations, and lies cannot prolong Ghani’s government’s life; his time has run out, God willing,” the spokesman said via Twitter.
This story is based on reporting by Radio Azadi correspondents on the ground in Afghanistan. Their names are being withheld for their protection.
With reporting by AFP and tolonews.com