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Join on Telegram Rabat – As the US, UK, and other NATO forces continue to exit Afghanistan, Taliban forces are gaining control of provinces around the country.
In April 2021, President Joe Biden announced that the US would withdraw all 2,500 troops from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021. Ahead of schedule, the last US troops left Bagram Air Base on Friday, July 3. The US military did not notify the Afghan military of its early departure and it took Afghan forces nearly two hours to discover the US’ departure.
Due to the early departure, Afghan troops responded to local looters that attempted to ransack the deserted base and steal items that the US military left behind such as laptops, speakers, and other scrap metal materials.
“At first we thought maybe they were Taliban,” said Afghan soldier Abdul Raouf.
Although the Taliban did not loot the Bagram Air Base, the military organization claims to have conquered 100 of Afghanistan’s 400 districts.
In the most recent update, the Taliban has entered the western Badghis province, which borders Turkmenistan. Local sources told BBC that the Taliban freed nearly 400 prisoners from a prison in the province and have begun to gain control of the town of Qala-e-Naw.
A variety of local reports have stated that the Taliban seized the town without militaristic intervention from the Afghan military. However, the Afghan military reports that it has continued fighting against the Taliban invasion of the town.
Taliban spokesperson, Suhail Shaheen, told BBC that Afghan troops were fleeing in droves to escape the overwhelming forces of the Taliban. Turkmenistan and Pakistan fear the renewed conflict in Afghanistan will force thousands of Afghan troops and families to flee to their neighboring countries.
In mid-June, Head of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) sub-office in Quetta, Erwin Policar, warned that, “we cannot rule out a fresh influx of Afghan refugees after foreign forces exit from Afghanistan.”
Since the announcement of the foreign troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, Taliban fighters have already killed 430 Afghan security forces members and 200 civilians, according to the Diplomat.
The military organization now controls approximately 1/3 of the country.
In the US, many conservative politicians have blamed President Joe Biden for the decision to depart Afghanistan on such short notice. US Republican politician, Michael McCaul, told Fox News, “when we fully withdraw, the devastation and the killings and women … fleeing across the border into Pakistan, President Biden is going to own these ugly images.”
In addition, the Afghan military has remained critical of the US’ swift departure. “In one night, they [the US] lost all the goodwill of 20 years by leaving the way they did, in the night, without telling the Afghan soldiers who were outside patrolling the area,” Afghan soldier Naematullah said.
