DM Monitoring
KABUL: The Taliban has taken control of more than 80 districts in the two months since launching its offensive against the Afghan government after President Joe Biden announced the US would withdraw its forces from the country by September.
In many cases, Afghan security forces have turned over district centers, abandoned military bases, surrendered to the Taliban and handed over their weapons, vehicles and other war material without a fight. The Taliban’s multi-year strategy of gaining influence in rural districts to then pressure the population centers is paying dividends.
Prior to the Taliban offensive, which began in earnest on May 1, the date that the US government originally committed to completing its withdraw under the Doha agreement, the Taliban controlled 73 of Afghanistan’s 407 districts, and contested 210, according to an ongoing assessment by FDD’s Long War Journal. The Biden administration moved the withdraw date to Sept. 11, 2021, the 20-year anniversary of Al Qaeda’s attack on American soil – which it plotted and executed largely from Afghanistan.
The Taliban began to seize territory once the May 1 deadline expired, and as of June 29, 2021, now controls 157 districts.
Much of the Taliban gains are in the north, and that has put multiple provincial capitals under threat. Taliban fighters have entered the cities of Kunduz and Pul-i-Khumri and are on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif and Taloqan. Other provincial capitals, such as Maimana and Faizabad, are under direct Taliban threat.
The Taliban has largely gained ground in districts that were previously contested. The number of contested districts dropped from 210 on May 1 to 157 today. However, at least 10 districts flipped entirely from government controlled to Taliban controlled without ever being labeled as contested.
The swift collapse of these 10 districts indicates that the Taliban has leveraged its strengths in neighboring districts to convince the local government officials and security forces to surrender. Part of the Taliban’s success is attributed to the tactic of having sympathetic or pro-Taliban tribal leaders and elders convince Afghan officials and military and police officers to abandon their posts. In contested districts, often the district centers and key military bases and outposts are surrounded and cut off from resupply and reinforcements.
However, many districts have been taken by the Taliban by force.
