sun_tzu
The Art of Bore
you have to wonder what our intelligence services were briefing about this... I know the last USA report that was made pubic said Kabul might be surrounded in a month and fall in three months (this seemed to assume there would be a siege / fighting)Surely you'd have assumed this could have occurred and setup contingencies? Y'know, covering all bases and being prepared for all outcomes? Yet another glowing example of how shite our Government is at handling any kind of event.
If they came to the same conclusion clearly they were wrong
If they just assumed the USA report was correct that's probably even worse than coming to the wrong conclusion
If they actually briefed wht has happened was a possibility / probability then yes the government should have had a better plan in place
It does seem surprising looking at the timeline though that at least a week ago there wasn't at least offer of repatriation flights for UK residents and anybody who worked with the UK forces?...
I do wonder how much the withdrawal from Bagram without communication hurt the moral of the Afghan forces and made them realise they were on their own... just seems a strange way to treat supposed allies?What's happened recently?
Since President Biden made the announcement in April a bad situation for the Afghan government has turned into a perilous one. Here's what's happened in recent months:
- May 4, the Taliban launches an offensive across the country focusing on the southern Helmand province.
- May 11, the Taliban capture Nerkh, just outside Kabul and fighting intensifies across the country.
- June 7, more than 150 Afghan soldiers are killed in less than 24 hours as the government begins to lose ground.
- June 22, the fighting spreads to the north, away from the Taliban's traditional strongholds in the south of the country and they seize several districts.
- July 2, the US pulls out of the Bagram airbase - once the centre of all US operations in the country - without telling their Afghan counterparts. US ground operations in Afghanistan effectively come to an end.
- August 6, a new rapid offensive by the Taliban begins and they claim their first provincial capital, Zaranj, in the south of the country.
- August 7, another provincial capital, Sheberghan, in the north falls to the Taliban.
- August 8, the Taliban seize control of three more provincial capitals in the north, Sar-e-Pul, Taloqan and the large and strategically important city of Kunduz.
- August 9, Aybak, another provincial capital, in the north is taken by the Taliban.
- August 10, provincial capital Pul-e-Khumri falls to the Taliban.
- August 11, the northern provincial capitals of Fayzabad falls to the Taliban in the north while they also seize control of Farah in the west.
- August 12, Afghanistan's second and third largest cities, Kandahar and Herat, were captured just hours after the takeover of Ghazni. Lashkar Gar city was also taken.
- August 14 - The Taliban captured Logar province, including its capital Pul-i-Alam. The province is just south of Kabul. It also captured Mazar-e-Sharif - a large, heavily defended city in northern Afghanistan.
- August 15 - The insurgents entered the presidential palace in the capital of Kabul and said they would soon declare the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. President Ashraf Ghani also left the country for neighbouring Tajikistan. The insurgents also seized Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province.