THE capture of Kunduz by Taliban fighters in the small hours of September 28th, just a day before the first anniversary of Ashraf Ghani’s presidential inauguration, was both a big propaganda victory for the insurgency and a nasty shock for Mr Ghani’s troubled government. Although three days later Afghan security forces, with some assistance from American air strikes, launched what appeared to be a successful counter-offensive, embarrassing questions will still be asked about how a city of 300,000 fell to insurgents. Kunduz is a northern provincial capital with a thriving trade (legal and illegal) with Tajikistan. It is by far the most important city to have been taken by the Taliban since their eviction from power 14 years ago.
Since April Kunduz had been in a state of semi-siege. With only a few weeks of the fighting season left before the harsh winter kicks in, the Taliban’s new leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, needed to display his grip on a divided movement still reeling from the announcement in July that the Taliban’s founder, Mullah Omar, had been dead for two years. Some Taliban “spectacular” was therefore not hard to predict....Continue reading
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