Afghanistan News & Discussion - April 2016

Cyrano · Post by **Cyrano** » 15 Aug 2021 00:53

Nice post Lohit.

kit · Post by **kit** » 15 Aug 2021 00:53

ramana wrote:Leonard, Only US has money to squander in slush funds.
Good questions.

+1

masters at playing the double game

nam · Post by **nam** » 15 Aug 2021 01:16

Those visas are probably for educated and India friendly people in the political setup or well to do lot in Kabul. Not for regular Afghans.

nam · Post by **nam** » 15 Aug 2021 01:23

Now as I read more about the ANA setup, I feel sorry for them. Both US & India failed them so as not to p** off Pak.

ANA was not provided with any armor, ATGM or heavy artillery. Nor with any major logistics setup. It was fundamentally a Humvee based police force.
A powerful ANA would have been a big trouble for Pak on Durand line.

The airpower was deliberately curtailed. How is that with US spending a 1T on Afghan adventure could fund more than 19 propeller Tucano? US provided Pak with free F16 for it's support, but nothing to ANA-AF! It had small transport fleet and there was no way it could support movement of troops and material across such a large country.

Afghans came to us in 2013 with a request to give them An32. We were more concerned about Pak feelings and refused. bl***dy h***.

ANA folded as soon as USAF stopped air support.

Cain Marko · Post by **Cain Marko** » 15 Aug 2021 01:42

Cyrano wrote:Documentary on UK Camp Bastion being dismantled in Afghanistan. Those advocating for Indian boots on the ground will appreciate the colossal logistics & equipment that went into building it and now dismantling it

whatever the cost to them, now it's a total loss. Nobody, at least I'm not advocating that India go about taking the entire burden upon itself. It's too late now. But my entry point would've been a year before the bases were vacated. The infrastructure already in place should've been repurposed for Indian use. The logistical chains should've remained and been paid for by US-UK etal. The ANA and afghan govt. formally invites an ipkf fully sanctioned by the UN. That's the precondition.

IF talibunnies are repurposed towards militancy in india and we have increased attacks in india, I'm afraid we can only blame ourselves. If India is shy about policing it's own backyard, why make claims of soopah powah?

Lohit · Post by **Lohit** » 15 Aug 2021 01:52

Cyrano wrote:Nice post Lohit.

Thanks chief.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 15 Aug 2021 02:02

The Afghans who came to India and those applying are not likely the deeply Islamic aam abdul.

India can tolerate anti-India activities from Indian Muslims and Sikhs. But they have a problem with middle class educated afghans? Have the previous batch, around NCR, conducted themselves like…..?

Bangladeshi infiltration is purely an Indian political matter. Vote banks work in India just as do for Justin Trudeau in Canada.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 15 Aug 2021 02:05

Further they usually speak some English, at least the men, and also Hindustani. Picked up from films. There is also a historic connection much preceding Islam.

g.sarkar · Post by **g.sarkar** » 15 Aug 2021 02:18

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-paci ... 021-08-14/
Taliban capture major city in northern Afghanistan, draw closer to Kabul
Reuters, August 14, 2021
KABUL- Taliban forces captured a major city in northern Afghanistan on Saturday, sending Afghan forces fleeing, and drew closer to Kabul, where Western countries scrambled to evacuate their citizens from the capital.
The fall of Mazar-i-Sharif, confirmed by a provincial council official, was another important capture for the hardline militants, who have swept through the country in recent weeks as U.S.-led forces withdrew. Kabul and Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan, are now the only big cities not in Taliban hands.
The United States and Britain are now rushing several thousand troops back into the country to evacuate citizens amid concern Kabul could soon be overrun.
Security forces from Mazar-i-Sharif were escaping towards the border, Afzal Hadid, head of the Balkh provincial council, told Reuters.
"The Taliban have taken control of Mazar-I-Sharif," he said. "All security forces have left Mazar city." The city appeared to have fallen largely without a fight, although sporadic clashes were continuing nearby, he said.
Earlier in the day, the rebels seized a town south of Kabul that is one of the gateways to the capital.
Many Afghans have fled from the provinces to the capital, driven out by fighting and fearful of a return to hardline Islamist rule, as resistance from Afghan government forces crumbles.
......
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/14/worl ... harif.html
Afghanistan’s commercial hub, Mazar-i-Sharif, falls to the insurgents.
Christina Goldbaum, Najim Rahim and Sharif Hassan, Aug. 14, 2021
KABUL, Afghanistan — The last major city in northern Afghanistan fell to the Taliban on Saturday night, marking the complete loss of the country’s north to the Taliban as the insurgents appear on the verge of a full military takeover.
The collapse of Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh Province and one of the last three major cities that had remained under government control, comes just a day after two key cities in southern and western Afghanistan were lost to the Taliban.
The insurgents now effectively control the southern, western and northern regions of the country — just about encircling the country’s capital, Kabul, as they press on in their rapid military offensive. The Taliban blitz began in May, but the insurgents have managed to seize more than half of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals in just over a week.
The Taliban seized Mazar-i-Sharif, the last northern holdout city, barely an hour after breaking through the front lines at the city’s edge. Soon after, government security forces and militias fled — including those led by the infamous warlords Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum and Atta Muhammad Noor — effectively handing control to the insurgents.
“Government forces and popular uprisings all left the city,” said Hashim Ahmadzai, a pro-government militia commander. “The Taliban seized government and military buildings. There was no resistance.”
For weeks, the government and militia forces had fortified the city’s defenses and manned them with fresh batches of newly recruited fighters. But on Saturday night, the city fell without a fight, causing many to speculate that the government or militia commanders had struck a deal to surrender the city to the Taliban.
With the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif, the only two major cities left under government control are Kabul and Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar Province in the eastern part of the country.
The loss of the north — once the heart of resistance to the insurgents’ rise to power in 1996 — to the Taliban offered a devastating blow to morale for a country gripped with panic.
In the late 1990s, Mazar-i-Sharif was the site of pitched battles between the Taliban and northern militia groups that managed to push back the hard-line insurgents before the group took over the city in 1998. The victory followed infighting and defections among the militias and culminated with the Taliban’s ethnically charged massacre of hundreds of militia fighters who had surrendered.
During the current Taliban military campaign, Mazar’s defense was almost completely reliant on the reincarnations of some of those very same militias that have all but failed to hold their territory elsewhere in the north. Some are led by Mr. Dostum, an infamous warlord and a former Afghan vice president who has survived the past 40 years of war by cutting deals and switching sides.
......
Gautam

nam · Post by **nam** » 15 Aug 2021 03:45

Does anyone know what is our current evacuation status? Reading on social media, the bunnies have started their offensive in to Kabul.

I don't if our guys are out or not, otherwise they will get stuck in a major major air traffic jam, with everyone trying to fly out.

What a mess!

pralay · Post by **pralay** » 15 Aug 2021 03:56

One of the important immediate goals of the bunnies will now be to house-arrest as many as foreign diplomats/staff in embassies only to be offered protection,option to stay, given safe passage and escorted to airport as part of PR to get international recognition.

nam · Post by **nam** » 15 Aug 2021 04:04

If the Kabul defence collapse, our people are going to be stuck in Kabul or even targeted by PA elements. I hope GoI has contingency in place.

As usual we are piggy backing on US to provide security and hoping for the best. GoI should have moved Para batallion in to Fakhnoor airbase to move in to Kabul to defend & evacuate our embassy is required.

yensoy · Post by **yensoy** » 15 Aug 2021 07:45

Lohit wrote:A historical analysis of the Afghan state's role in the Indian sub-continent and its extrapolation to potential geo-pol implications
Afghanistan and the subcontinent: an inseparable history of conflict

This is an excellent summary/snapshot of the situation. Very well done.

Couple of nits. First, Talibunnies are unlikely to get much traction in the Stans. Stans are not ideological states and have always maintained a healthy separation of religion from state matters. Together with huge dependencies on mother Russia, and being run by strongmen for the most part who will be the first to put down any signs of IS with an iron first, I think this will be a rather impregnable wall to the north.

While you did mention the Gulf states, I will call out Saudi Arabia. They have become markedly less ideological (although it takes very long for a leopard to change its spots) and MBS will not tolerate any second power center especially one with IS leanings. The lassiez faire environment which led to OBL and AQ will be less possible, although between Syria, Yemen and Iraq other opportunities have emerged.

Third point is that Talibunnies do not follow Indian Deoband. Pakis have their own post-partition version of everything, like roohafza. In any mass terrorist incident in India, muslims are affected at least in line with their population numbers, so let's not overblow the Talib's power to create communal situations on our side (and let's ensure we don't score self-goals in this regard).

Splitting Afghanistan is a possibility, but instead of acceding eastern provinces to Iran (which Unkil would hate to happen) it would be better for us to envisage a Baluchistan-Kandahar independent state. But it is absolutely certain that the big loser in all this is Pakistan. The Talibs have been nurtured and loved by Pak deep state and this takes a lot of money which like common sense isn't in much supply in Pakistan these days. ISI can't pull the plug on the Taliban either without severe blowback. It's going to be fun to watch from the sidelines and let's thank Jinnah for creating the condom that will keep us safe.

Kakkaji · Post by **Kakkaji** » 15 Aug 2021 07:59

Lohit wrote: Finally, let me also put up a long term view (completely ideal and hypothetical): the only solution to the Afghan issue is hinted at by the period under the Mughals where Afghanistan was split into three. Even now, a likely solution may involve a truly global military and diplomatic effort whereby the North goes to Stans, Western provinces to Iran and Eastern Pashtun provinces to Pakistan. The only catch however is that a super-large Pashtun population may again in turn alienate and cause resentment/separatism amongst Punjabi, Sindhi and Baloch populations of Pak.

Lohit ji:

Agree with everything you have written except the bolded part.

A better, more stable, solution will be to create a new country of Pashtunistan by carving out NWFP and FATA from Pakistan and merging them with the Pashtun areas of current Afghanistan.

Ambar · Post by **Ambar** » 15 Aug 2021 08:03

nam wrote:Does anyone know what is our current evacuation status? Reading on social media, the bunnies have started their offensive in to Kabul.

I don't if our guys are out or not, otherwise they will get stuck in a major major air traffic jam, with everyone trying to fly out.

What a mess!

No news about Indian evacuation but the taliban have entered Kabul and are said to be a mere 12 kms from the Kabul airport. The ANA seem to have abandoned fighting even in Kabul where everyone was speculating they'll put up a firm fight atleast in the capital. The situation is extremely grim and almost all the countries with a embassy in Kabul are mobilizing their special operations forces to evacuate embassy staff and the Afghan nationals who worked there.

Deans · Post by **Deans** » 15 Aug 2021 10:00

The GDP of Afghanistan is about $ 20 billion.
The illegal drug trade (which finances the Taliban) is worth about $ 5 billion.

More significantly, the plant from which a key ingredient can be extracted for the production of meth (methamphetamine) has been
discovered to be growing in the wild in Afghanistan. Hitherto, this ingredient was man made and cost a lot more. Meth labs have mushroomed in Afghanistan the past year. Expect Meth to start overtaking Heroin as Afghanistan's main export.

Control of border crossings is the next biggest source or revenue. Iran and Pakistan have high tariff barriers to imports. Afghanistan has none.
Shipping containers from Dubai arrive into Afghanistan with electronics, pharma, cigarettes, alcohol etc, get destuffed and smuggled into Pak and Iran. Afghan warlords have their clansmen in Dubai controlling this trade. I used to to business with one of them.
People smuggling will be the next biggest growth area, as Afghans get desperate to leave and Liberal Europe is willing to let them enter.

The main disagreement between the Taliban and ANA is how this pie should be divided.

rsingh · Post by **rsingh** » 15 Aug 2021 10:44

Guys we can do kutnitik vichar vmash after. Situation is very volatile. Isn't it better if we post on ongoing situation which is developing hour by hour? GOI warned Indian citizens and evacuated most of them properly. This gungho about paratroopers to be dropped etc is not practical. It is not a film. Dropped to do what? Our staff is safe and GOI is doing right thing. We stayed away from foot on ground for 20 years. Why now? Please post news as you get from different sources.We will have time for essay writing. Singha Saar is duly remembered for his posts during ISIS/ Syria crisis.

g.sarkar · Post by **g.sarkar** » 15 Aug 2021 11:31

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/1 ... -in-504582
‘Forget the visas’: The scramble is on to save Afghan partners as Taliban close in
Ad hoc groups of ex-officials are desperately trying to extract their former Afghan colleagues.
BRYAN BENDER and ALEXANDER WARD, 08/14/2021
As U.S. troops evacuate diplomats from Kabul this weekend, a frantic effort is also underway behind the scenes to rescue Afghan interpreters and other local partners and their families before they are executed or otherwise punished as collaborators by the Taliban.
In a flurry of texts, phone calls and emails to members of Congress, Pentagon and State Department colleagues — and anyone in their network who may have contacts who can help — military and diplomatic veterans are pulling out all the stops to try to save Afghan friends and colleagues either awaiting evacuation by the State Department or whose applications for a special immigrant visa remain in bureaucratic limbo.
“The situation is extremely desperate,” said Mariah Smith, a retired U.S. Army officer who did three tours in Afghanistan. “I am heartbroken over the ones we can’t help.” Smith is rushing to buy up seats on the few commercial airlines still flying out of Kabul International Airport on behalf of No One Left Behind, a non-profit dedicated to assisting Afghan and Iraq interpreters.
”If Kabul falls, we need to get more aircraft with seats into Kabul airport,” she said. “We are struggling, too, with people whose visas are not quite ready. If we could just get them somewhere to safety for a few weeks, I think we could financially find the way to support them for a little bit until we sorted out immigration or refugee status.”
In the past two weeks the organization has been able to spirit 40 Afghans and their families, or about 200 people, out of Kabul on commercial flights.
But they’re running out of time. President Joe Biden on Saturday dispatched an additional 1,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to Kabul to help evacuate American diplomats via the airport. In all, 5,000 American troops have been assigned to the evacuation since Thursday — both in the country and on standby in the region. “We need the administration to step up and evacuate the thousands of Afghans that are waiting to a safe third country,” Smith said.
.....
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/14/us/p ... liban.html
Taliban Capture Strategic City as Biden Speeds Troop Deployment to Afghanistan
The collapse of Mazar-i-Sharif signaled the complete loss of Afghanistan’s north as the insurgents appeared on the verge of a full military takeover.
Helene Cooper and Christina Goldbaum, Aug. 14, 2021
WASHINGTON — With the Afghan government collapsing to a surging Taliban, President Biden sought to project an image of resolve on Saturday, speeding the deployment of an additional 1,000 troops to Afghanistan as he announced a series of steps that he said would protect American interests. The announcement came hours after the Taliban seized the last major city in northern Afghanistan, Mazar-i-Sharif, marking the complete loss of the country’s north as they appeared on the verge of a full military takeover. A day earlier, two key cities in southern and western Afghanistan fell to the Taliban.
The insurgents now effectively control the southern, western and northern regions of the country — just about encircling the country’s capital, Kabul, as they press on in their rapid military offensive. The Taliban blitz began in May, but the insurgents have managed to capture more than half of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals in over a week.
The only two major cities left under government control are Kabul and Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar Province in the eastern part of the country. The loss of the north — once the heart of the resistance to the Taliban’s earlier rise to power in 1996 — offered a devastating blow to morale for a country gripped with panic.
Mr. Biden’s statement on Saturday did little beyond asserting what the administration has already been doing: proclaiming support for the government of Afghanistan, warning the Taliban not to attack American troops and undertaking the intensive process of giving special immigrant visas to fleeing Afghans who worked for the United States over the past 20 years.
The president defended his decision to leave the country after two decades of war, a departure that has led to the near-disintegration of the Afghan military. He also sought to spread the blame, accusing President Donald J. Trump of boxing him in by agreeing to a May 1 deadline to withdraw all American troops from the country.
......
Gautam

Cyrano · Post by **Cyrano** » 15 Aug 2021 12:00

nam wrote:If the Kabul defence collapse, our people are going to be stuck in Kabul or even targeted by PA elements. I hope GoI has contingency in place.

As usual we are piggy backing on US to provide security and hoping for the best. GoI should have moved Para batallion in to Fakhnoor airbase to move in to Kabul to defend & evacuate our embassy is required.

If you remember what EAM S Jiashankar said during the "toolkit" episode and the attacks in Indian embassies in UK, Italy etc a few months ago, he cares deeply about our staffers and will do what is necessary to keep them safe. Have some trust nam saar !

yogi · Post by **yogi** » 15 Aug 2021 12:18

Reuters is reporting that Jalalabad has fallen.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-paci ... 021-08-14/

rsingh · Post by **rsingh** » 15 Aug 2021 12:43

Unconfirmed reports......on the gates of Kabul. Video of night time firing and urban fight are fake.

yogi · Post by **yogi** » 15 Aug 2021 13:31

AshishA · Post by **AshishA** » 15 Aug 2021 13:38

^^ Strikingly similar to the rooftop evacuation of the Saigon Embassy.

On the other hand, what happens to the tons of US weapons that has fallen into the hands of the Talibunnies? Will the Talibunnies keep it or will Pakis get their hands on it for free?

rsingh · Post by **rsingh** » 15 Aug 2021 13:38

Is it old pic or new? I see some text in Arabic. If it is new then is exactly same. Confused. Think is morphed. Quality of building is definitely 50 years old.

rkirankr · Post by **rkirankr** » 15 Aug 2021 13:54

This is a lesson to all countries, Never trust the US or their allies. For them it is just business.

nam · Post by **nam** » 15 Aug 2021 14:20

Americans are not emotional. They are very transactional. People forget they made a country the 2nd largest GDP in the world, with whom they have fought a bloody multi year war!

We may not have the bunnies on our border, but the drugs will definitely be coming in.

rsingh · Post by **rsingh** » 15 Aug 2021 14:22

Ask any burka clad Madame to remove burka because she living in free and open society. She will never agree to it. Then why whole world is doing rona dhona about condition of women under talibans? It is in religion let them to live like that .

rsingh · Post by **rsingh** » 15 Aug 2021 14:25

Countries do not belive America. They live under fear of America.

Sicanta · Post by **Sicanta** » 15 Aug 2021 15:19

An Afghans opinion

https://twitter.com/obaidotman/status/1 ... 59493?s=19

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 15 Aug 2021 15:27

AshishA wrote:^^ Strikingly similar to the rooftop evacuation of the Saigon Embassy.

On the other hand, what happens to the tons of US weapons that has fallen into the hands of the Talibunnies? Will the Talibunnies keep it or will Pakis get their hands on it for free?

For the longest time now, the pakis have been pressurizing the US to leave behind their mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles for the use of the paki army/or "give" them to the pakis for their use.

the pakis probably will use them in baluchistan where the pakis troops often go to "holiday" on tourist visas.

don't know if that has happened but in the pictures that showed US vehicles under taliban control, it looked like a number of these vehicles have been taken by the taliban and that too, in a working condition along with a lot of humvees and other "captured" assets not yet revealed.

I wonder why these MRAP assets were not irreparably disabled by the US or destroyed with a bit of strategically placed C4.

These beasts also consume prodigious amounts of fuel with their 6-7 liters, and often super charged, cummins or caterpillar diesel engines.

I have a strong feeling that some setting has been arrived at by the taliban and the US involving lots of money as well as such military assets with more to come.

Now coming to the afghan/taliban narco terror trade, there is a previously ignored but wide spread plant called Ephedra—known as oman in some areas of the afghan countryside and bandak in other areas—is a plant that has grown wild and abundantly across afghanistan’s mountainous central highlands for centuries. Today, that same plant is fuelling the dramatic growth in the (crystal meth) methamphetamine industry in afghanistan, in addition to their traditional opium and cocaine.

Around the world, most meth is made from synthetic ephedrine, a decongestant found in cough and cold products. And before 2017, producers in Afghanistan opted for this precursor as well, Nabizada says. They usually obtained ephedrine, or the related chemical pseudoephedrine, from store-bought medications. But sourcing enough to support meth production is slow and expensive.

So in 2015, Afghanistan’s producers began experimenting with extracting ephedrine from the ephedra plant, and by 2018, most local meth labs were using the plant. The switch sparked rapid growth in the industry and a corresponding surge in profits that are making their way to the coffers of the Taliban.

so, the taliban have included crystal meth in their narco terror arsenal. Massive drug busts in India attest to the much increased volume of this narco terror trade. A lot of it is entering India through the sea route via lakshadweep and KER, meaning that the afghan/taliban narco terror supply chain is very jehadi heavy and that same jehadi heavy transportation links for export to markets in EU and also ameriki markets and some of the distribution network in India for local markets is also heavily protected politically.

Additionally, blacks from africa, actively operating in India in the narco terror trade, majority of them in cities like dilli, bombay, bangalore, hyderabad etc, appear to be local liaisons for offshore networks in the same afghan origin narco terror supply chains.

There are dark rumors that some political parties in dilli, WB, KER, TN as well as KAR are involved in this narco terror trade. They seem to be connected to the ISIS via the wide spread PFI networks operating locally and also financing projects like shaheenbagh and the "farmer's" agitation and the anti India, anti Modi fake news journo enterprises.

These guys are very violent as the local police have discovered and often operate under cover of their embassies with their diplomats ever ready to make the local police back off and even pressurize them to release such blacks caught red handed with huge quantities of narcotics

A scorpion MRAP can cost between 500K to 1 million$ depending on how it has been outfitted.

It simply doesn't compute how so many apparently undamaged top of the line military vehicles could have "fallen" into the hands of the taliban.

A retreating army always destroys its own assets that it has been forced to leave behind. Something is not right.

there is no doubt that the pakis and the taliban are playing for the same side. It only remains to be seen who will prevail and also get to become the team captain.

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 15 Aug 2021 17:06

What is the State of our Embassy staff- hope they have all been evacuated. The Afgans have chosen not to fight the Taliban- we should just concentrating on getting all our staff out.

Cyrano · Post by **Cyrano** » 15 Aug 2021 17:17

Taliban have rolled into Kabul which they said they wouldn't try to take fighting. There was no resistance, so there was no fighting.

Taliban also said they won't attack any embassies - I think they will not because if they do and kill any westerners or Indians, there will be heavy retribution and after getting so close to power again in Afghanistan - they will not squander his moment away.

Ghani govt has no choice but to leave and run. Everyone else has to wait and watch nervously while pulling out key people, to see what happens with Taliban take full control of the country.

End of a chapter, beginning of a new one.

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 15 Aug 2021 17:27

yes But why it there no noise that our Embassy and civilians are being evacuated- as a safety measure- we must leave no one behind in Afgansitan at the mercy of the Taliban.

kit · Post by **kit** » 15 Aug 2021 17:39

India must support a legitimatized "Government in exile" for the Afghanistan government to be established in India.

This will keep the ball rolling and provide necessary pressure points in the long run.

AshishA · Post by **AshishA** » 15 Aug 2021 17:47

We had 20 years to prepare for this eventuality. So I hope we got our plans in place.

Cyrano · Post by **Cyrano** » 15 Aug 2021 18:00

Host in India what Afghan Govt in exile ? The corrupt till the ears Ghani Govt ? Oh pleez !!

They dont have much popular support among afghans themselves. Any such move is useless.

kit · Post by **kit** » 15 Aug 2021 18:04

Cyrano wrote:Host in India what Afghan Govt in exile ? The corrupt till the ears Ghani Govt ? Oh pleez !!

They dont have much popular support among afghans themselves. Any such move is useless.

The "popular support" does not matter, wait till the Talibunnies take control !

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 15 Aug 2021 18:16

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/wor ... 346952.cms

The Ruskies and Chinis were in with whatever plans afoot

Ambar · Post by **Ambar** » 15 Aug 2021 18:18

Aditya_V wrote:What is the State of our Embassy staff- hope they have all been evacuated. The Afgans have chosen not to fight the Taliban- we should just concentrating on getting all our staff out.

No news from Kandahar and Jalalabad but looks like some of the Kabul staff and our afghan allies have been evacuated. The taliban, most likely due to some sort of an agreement with Qatar and Pakistan seem to have halted their offensive outside of Kabul. So probably we have another 24 hrs to close out all operations and pull out our people. ISI will ruthlessly go after our assets once Kabul falls, i hope we are doing our best to pull them out of Afghanistan asap.

Absolute radio silence from the whitehouse and the US mainstream media. Afghanistan may not matter much economically or politically but it truly feels like the era of a single superpower is over as are the days of American military adventurism, we are rapidly moving towards a multi-polar world.

Ambar · Post by **Ambar** » 15 Aug 2021 18:21

Maria wrote:https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/wor ... 346952.cms

The Ruskies and Chinis were in with whatever plans afoot

The new "axis" - Russia, China, Iran, Qatar, Turkey and Pakistan. The irony is on most days none of these guys will be able to stand each other in the same room for an hour let alone wage great wars together ! But such is realpolitik !