The fall of Kunduz

Peace remains eternally elusive, and for Taliban, currently on a roll, there is little incentive to come to the table

The taking — though possibly temporarily — of Kunduz by the Afghan Taliban was not unexpected. They had surrounded the northern Afghan city for months and made at least one previous attempt to take it. American aircraft are reportedly and somewhat belatedly said to have attacked the Taliban positions — necessary because Afghanistan does not possess an air force worthy of the name. For the first time since they were deposed, the Afghan Taliban are close to controlling a major urban centre outside their traditional operational areas in the south and east of the country. Kunduz is a major trading hub for the region and not only Afghanistan, and neighbouring countries will view this development with justified concern.



The assault was symbolic in that it marked the first anniversary of the accession to power of the government of Ashraf Ghani after a bitterly fought election, the outcome of which is still disputed by many. He has to lead a military that is poorly trained and equipped (by Nato, no less), suffers from significant command and leadership deficits and is losing men and materials to the Taliban daily. There are reports of preparations for a counterattack, of Afghan forces regrouping at Kunduz airport and special forces having been flown in — but none of this can disguise a painful reality. The Taliban as a fighting force are effective, well-resourced and disciplined and moreover have a developing capacity to take and hold urban centres, a gambit they have taken as an example from the Islamic State (IS). The operation will have bolstered the position of Mullah Mansoor, who is still far from consolidated as the leader of the Taliban in their entirety, and may be viewed as a harbinger of yet worse to come.

Since they were deposed in 2001, the Taliban have been very much a rural phenomenon in terms of a fighting force. The majority of the battles fought against the Taliban by American and Nato forces over the years have been in the countryside, not the cities, and always had massive air support. But Nato and the Americans are figures of the past, and the compass militarily has swung in the Taliban’s direction. Without the clout of Western might, Afghan forces are very much left to their own devices. The fragmented tapestry of loyalties and affiliations that are Afghan culture and society are not a good foundation for a unified army and thus it is proving to be. The Taliban are now in a position to exploit this fundamental weakness, and if they are able, however briefly, to claim to have taken and held Kunduz, then other cities are also vulnerable and the spectre of Domino Theory heaves itself over the horizon.

Military misadventures aside, President Ghani has some pressing foreign policy issues, not the least being relations with Pakistan. Once again, there is a churn, with the Afghan president seeking on September 28 to refine the semantics of our relationship saying that they were not “brotherly” but more like a relationship between two states — a description that itself is open to a variety of interpretations. Speaking to the BBC in a first-anniversary interview, he called for Islamabad to take the same stance in respect of all engaged in terrorism, and by inference saying that Pakistan needs to be less selective about the terrorists it chooses to strike.

Peace remains eternally elusive, and for the Taliban, currently on a roll, there is little incentive to come to the table. There is a chance to take the ascendancy, and the Taliban are nothing if not opportunistic. Afghan governmental entities have always been weak, with much devolved local power in the hands of tribal and ethnic groups. This provides any number of opportunities to exploit divisions and split loyalties. It is not beyond imagination that the Taliban could again find themselves at the gates of Kabul, beyond which is a vast cabinet full of unopened cans of worms.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30^th, 2015.

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