Afghanistan stunned by scale and speed of security forces’ collapse

[superadmin]

Last autumn, with the departure of American troops from Afghanistan looming after the US signed a withdrawal deal with the Taliban, several of the most senior security officials in Kabul urged President Ashraf Ghani to make some hard choices.

The Afghan army and police needed to retrench, figures including the then defence minister, Assadullah Khalid, told Ghani. Remote outposts, and rural areas where troops held little more than the cluster of government and security buildings that make up a “district centre”, should be abandoned.

Troops and ammunition drawn back from these areas could focus on the fight for more important assets, such as key roads and border crossings, as forces adapted to the loss of the US air force and other technical support that had been critical to fighting the Taliban, they argued.

The men urging this strategic retreat had, between them, years of experience fighting in the different iterations of Afghanistan’s civil wars, which have now stretched on for more than 40 years in a kaleidescope of shifting enemies and allies.

Ghani and his national security adviser, Hamdullah Mohib, who have multiple prestigious degrees but no battlefield experience, refused. “We’re not giving up one inch of our country,” Mohib reportedly told the assembled officials at one point, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the discussions. The government declined to comment.

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