Page 28 - bne magazine September 2021_20210901

28 I Afghanistan falls to the Taliban bne September 2021
killings of those that worked for
Nato forces and that they “would be forgiven.” The Taliban also explicitly gave a guarantee that no harm would be done to Russian diplomats. Russia's embassy is one of the few such missions in Kabul still functioning along with that of China. Both countries are expected to be key strategic allies
for the new Taliban regime.
President Ashraf Ghani fled the capital on a plane for Dushanbe within a few hours of the surrender, completing the humiliating collapse of the US-backed government. Tajikistan and the two other Central Asian states that border Afghanistan, meanwhile, were keeping
a wary eye on the situation, though the Taliban have said it has no interest in advancing beyond Afghanistan's borders.
There were scenes of chaos as western diplomats and well connected locals attempted to get onto C-17 US transport planes that were leaving the country. The US visa processing office in Kabul was flooded with former workers desperately trying to fill out the (English language) forms for special US visas that would allow them to escape to the US.
“Afghans at a visa processing office in Kabul just now. One man, overwhelmed, trying to help Afghans fill out US state dept forms (in English). Desperation. Many people came up to me crying, saying the need to leave, fear for their lives as Taliban closes in on Kabul,” tweeted Richard Engel, NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent from Kabul.
The international community fled to Kabul’s main airport and launched a desperate evacuation programme the like of which have not been seen since the Berlin Air Bridge after the Soviet Union closed assess to Germany’s capital and built the Berlin wall.
Nato's secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said that Nato was helping keep the airport open to facilitate and coordinate evacuations as tensions escalated.
By early evening on the first day there were reports of gunfire near the airport and the Russian Sputnik
www.bne.eu
newswire reported two large explosions near the US embassy in the city.
“Taliban roaming in #Kabul airport road driving Humvees, and motorbikes as sporadic fire can be heard from different locations. Helicopters flying overhead,” Hamid Shalizi, a reporter from Reuters, tweeted in the early evening. At the same time the Taliban had taken over the national TV centre and began broadcasting to the population.
The country’s acting central bank governor announced that he was leaving the country for the US for a “complete medical check up” because he has “not been feeling well for the last few days.”
There were also reports of several hundred Afghans who turned up seeking to cross the Friendship Bridge on the Uzbek border near the Afghan town of Hairatan. Initially they were blocked
by Uzbek border troops, but it appears they were eventually allowed through.
Many Afghans are afraid that the Taliban will actually seek revenge on those that cooperated with the US or have adopted more liberalised values. However, the Taliban sought to reassure the international community that no pogroms of revenge are planned.
A spokesman for the Taliban told the BBC's Yalda Hakim "there will
be no revenge" on the people of Afghanistan on the same day as
the fall of Kabul. Suhail Shaheen called the presenter live on air. "We assure the people in Afghanistan, particularly in the city of Kabul, that their properties, their lives are safe – there will be no revenge on anyone," he told her. "We are the servants of the people and of this country.”
But few have faith in the promise. There are reports that the Taliban have been executing government soldiers, not only those captured in the field; in the past few days soldiers are said to have been dragged from homes in cities recently captured and shot on their doorsteps.
Likewise there are similar unconfirmed reports of Taliban beating, raping and
executing women for breaking their strict codes of conduct. Taliban officials also tried to downplay these fears in more statements on August 15, saying women would be allowed outside without a male family escort and that women would be allowed to work. Again, reports have already come in from captured cities of female students being turned away from universities and women at work being sent home and told their job would be given to a man.
Even before the Taliban had secured Kabul, workers had been deployed to paint over all the billboard advertisements along streets with pictures of women.
US plans gone awry
The US command badly miscalculated the speed of the Taliban’s military takeover and the ability of the US-trained Afghan government forces to resist them. Four days ago the US high command revised its estimate
for the fall of Kabul from 12 to 3 three months, the Washington Post reported.
“Afghanistan was the most distilled example of Potemkin democracy. East European examples are less clear cut
- they have elements of both genuine and Potemkin democracy, which comes in a package with geopolitical choice. A truly organic government is perhaps Orban’s,” Leonid Ragozin, a Russian reporter based in Latvia, tweeted.
The Afghan army that was supposed to protect the country melted away in the face of the Taliban onslaught. Poorly provisioned and with low morale, the army was never effective as a fighting force. Moreover, military analysts commenting on the debacle say that the army was trained to fight in an American way that relies heavily on air support – support that ended with the departure of the US troops in July.
“In the last days, there was no food, no water and no weapons,” said trooper Taj Mohammad, 38. Fleeing in an armoured personnel carrier and one Ford Ranger, some remaining soldiers finally made a run to the relative safety of a provincial capital, which