The Taliban Are Winning In Afghanistan

Afghan special forces arrive for a battle with the Taliban in Kunduz city, northern Afghanistan, September 29. REUTERS

Asim Yousafzai, Foreign Policy: The Taliban Are Winning

And the taking of Kunduz was just a dry run for the eventual attack on Kabul.

en the Taliban took Afghanistan’s key northern city of Kunduz on Sept. 28, the world could hardly believe it. Located near the country’s border with Tajikistan, Kunduz has long served as a strategic and economic trade hub connecting Kabul with Central Asia and was one of the last Taliban strongholds to fall following the 2001 U.S. invasion. On Oct. 1, President Ashraf Ghani announced that Afghan forces had retaken Kunduz, though there are still conflicting reports as to who actually controls the city center.

Then, early on Oct. 3, a U.S.-manned AC-130 gunship fired on a hospital in Kunduz run by Doctors Without Borders, killing some 22 people and incurring universal condemnation. Doctors Without Borders called the incident tantamount to war crimes and is demanding an independent investigation. Although the exact reason for the attack remains unknown, it appears that Taliban fighters in the hospital’s vicinity were attacking Afghan forces — a claim Doctors Without Borders has denied.

WNU Editor: I feel a sense of deja vu. What is happening now reminds me of what the Soviets in Afghanistan were going through in the late 1980s a few years before the Taliban stormed Kabul and seized the country.