Even the Taliban are amazed at the speed of their takeover of Afghanistan, says US diplomat | World News
One US diplomat told Sky News that it’s not just the West that finds the Taliban’s speed of takeover of Afghanistan surprising – the militant group is also shocked.
The Taliban’s fighters are “beyond the capabilities of their commanders,” said Ross Wilson, speaking nearly a year after the group take control of Kabul on August 15, 2021.
And they succeeded because they “battled harder, longer, and more determinedly than anyone else was prepared to do”.
Mr. Wilson, who served as the US special agent in Afghanistan from 2020 to 2021, made it clear that change was happening before the seismic events of last summer.
“From the beginning of June, the situation gradually deteriorated, noting that about 70-80 county capitals have fallen into the hands of the Taliban,” he said.
Then, in early August, “the first of a series of provincial capitals fell … first near the Iranian border in the west and then most alarmingly the set of capitals of province north of Kabul”.
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Beyond Afghanistan: Chaos in Kabul
The US “did not expect the collapse of the Afghan government in mid-August or that it would be so quick,” Mr Wilson said.
“Taliban leaders have given us assurances that their fighters will not, in fact, enter Kabul itself, that they will stop,” he continued.
“We believe that for good reason, several attempts were made to communicate that down the ranks and records – and that didn’t happen.
“The warriors were beyond the capabilities of their commanders and I think the fact that the Talibs were taken by surprise is evident in their response after the fall of the government.
“They’ve spent a long time – weeks – figuring out what to do next, how to organize themselves – and they still haven’t really organized themselves effectively enough to lead the government.”
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What was life like under the Taliban?
The Taliban also doesn’t have much public support, Mr. Wilson said.
“They came to power not because a large portion of the Afghan population wanted them to come to power but because they fought harder, longer and more determinedly than anyone else was prepared to do.
“The flip side of that is that they don’t have a lot of ways of popular support to come back when they and the country are reeling from a bunch of problems.”
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Mr. Wilson suggested there could also be an objection at the outset.
“The generation that the United States and our European and other allies in Afghanistan invested in, for better or worse – most of those people are still there.
“And I think they’re still a potentially powerful force of influence as the country grows and develops over the next few years.
“That’s not to say I think the fall of the Taliban is imminent or that the Westerners, if you will, or the people we’ve invested in are about to take over, but I still think those millions is or will be forced to change.”
