CNN in part: Earlier Monday, the insurgents seized the main roundabout in the city and made it to the prison, where they freed more than 500 inmates, who flooded the streets of Kunduz, Hussaini told CNN.
One of the released inmates told CNN, “We were hearing gunshots throughout the day, but it was 4:00 p.m. when the Kunduz prison guards left the compound. Then, the inmates broke all the doors and fences and started running towards the main gate.”
“As soon as we opened the main gate, we saw a group of armed Taliban outside the gate. They told us that we were free and could go home. … We all headed towards our homes,” he said.
The Taliban also claimed to have seized a 200-bed hospital — posting photos to social media that they claimed proved their control of the facility.
Sediqqi said at least four civilians had died and 50 others were wounded as Taliban forces were firing heavy weapons indiscriminately throughout the city.
In addition, 25 Taliban fighters were killed, Sediqqi said, and two Afghan policemen died and four others were wounded.
Will Barack Obama evaluate the rules of engagement in Afghanistan?
Politico: Barack Obama may not call what American troops will do in Afghanistan next year “combat,” but he has quietly laid the groundwork for continuing battle against the Taliban. Obama has authorized the military to provide air support to Afghan troops next year after the U.S. has completed the transition to its “advise- and-assist” mission, the White House says.
At the same time, administration officials say they aren’t increasing the number of troops, slowing the drawdown or changing their mission, but are allowing commanders in Afghanistan to have the authority to order attacks if necessary.
That was clear in guidance Obama issued to preserve broad discretion for American commanders, who asked for a robust ability to protect U.S. troops and support the Afghan National Security Forces even though the Afghans bear main responsibility for the war against the Taliban. Further details.
The Taliban taking over Kunduz is a big Deal
WSJ: On Monday, Taliban fighters seized Kunduz, city of about 300,000 people in the country’s north. Government forces have reportedly fled to the outskirts of town, and Taliban flags have been seen around the city.
We should be very concerned about the fall of Kunduz for four reasons:
1.) A Taliban takeover of a large urban area is no longer an abstraction.
Since losing power 14 years ago, the Taliban’s territorial triumphs in Afghanistan have been limited to taking control of pockets of rural and remote areas. This can be attributed to the international combat mission, improvements in Afghan war-fighting capacities, and an increasingly fractured and vulnerable insurgency. With the Kunduz seizure, however, the Taliban has pulled off what it could not do in nearly the last decade and a half, and what arguably no militant group other than ISIS has been able to achieve over the same period.
2.) The Taliban now boasts a bonafide bastion far from its traditional stronghold.
The Taliban’s main areas of strength have been eastern and southern Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border. It is in these regions where much of the international coalition’s combat missions were centered. In recent years, however, the Taliban and its allies have sought to develop new bases and footholds to the north and northeast. Ominously, nearly two years ago the journalist and Taliban expert Ahmed Rashid warned that militants were trying to secure Afghanistan’s entire northeastern corridor to establish a base for operations against the government in Kabul.
3.)Afghan forces are in big trouble.
The fall of Kunduz did not come out of nowhere. Taliban forces had been chipping away at the city’s security for weeks. Afghan government forces, however, were unable or unwilling to pre-empt this threat. For all the improvements that Afghan troops have made in recent years, the country’s fighting forces remain a major work in progress. And when your country faces an insurgency capable of seizing a big city, “work in progress” is not good enough—and is, in fact, quite dangerous.
4.)The government is in a very tough spot.
It’s hard to be optimistic that Afghanistan’s national unity government will mount a robust and rapid response to the Kunduz seizure. After all, this administration—which recently marked its first anniversary in power—still lacks a full cabinet, including a defense minister. Kabul’s capacity to confront an emboldened insurgency is questionable given its inability to achieve even the most basic tasks of governance.
Fortunately, there may be a silver lining to all this: a potential blow to ISIS. The terror group has gradually made inroads in Afghanistan, winning the allegiances of disaffected Taliban leaders. However, the Kunduz takeover underscores that the Taliban remains the biggest militant threat in Afghanistan, and that it can pull off, albeit on a smaller scale, the type of dramatic acts that ISIS can pull off in Iraq and Syria. This could boost Taliban recruitment efforts in Afghanistan, and dampen those of ISIS.
Either way, today’s news from Kunduz is a very big deal, and deserves a fair share of airtime.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
