Is it possible that only 500 poorly equipped terrorists, most of them without any military training, have conquered Afghanistan's sixth largest city and a strategic point to reach Central Asia? The answer is yes and that is what happened a few hours ago when the fundamentalists conquered the entire province of Kunduz.
The initial feeling has been confirmed: the Afghan security forces have not fought and are not doing it even now, despite the presence of isolated clashes. The soldiers, trained by the US and NATO, equipped with the best that American military technology could offer them did not even fight, escaping.
This speaks volumes about what is really happening in Afghanistan (and in the territory that the US has tried to control). Between the cowardice of these "troops" and the strategic cunning of the terrorists, thousands of civilians holed up in their homes waiting to know their destiny. And that Kunduz, at 150 miles north of Kabul, represents a humiliation for the government supported by the West is now a fact.
The reason? But it is indeed possible, despite the coordination and violence of the attacks and the probable support of al-Qaeda guerrillas, that a regular army (including the police) of 352 thousand men (these on paper the official data of Kabul) can really be rejected by "men on horseback"?
Consider the purely numerical comparison, not the ideological or motivational one. The loss of Kunduz province shows how Afghanistan has not yet implemented the most basic command and control procedures for the management of its military forces. But even more it demonstrates the umpteenth failure of the American "Train and Equip" policy, a sort of "open bar" where anyone can buy anything.
The feeling is that in the unbridled desire to "sell" to keep the military industry alive, the US (but everyone is doing it: Russia, France ...) attach little importance to the real stability of the "helped" government. What is happening in Iraq, with thousands of vehicles "given" to the Islamic State, should make us think and we should not allow access to sensitive equipment that is in reality weak, unstable and of dubious loyalty.
The training then, does not seem to work as it should. The risk is that the US, by doing so, is only training tomorrow's terrorists. This is because the actual military training does not match that basic conviction, that loyalty to one's own country and to the conception of "State", different perhaps from that supported by the USA. Here then we run the risk of creating a new frontier of terrorism that could aim to exploit the well-paid presence of the West to train its troops and then turn them against them. It happened in Syria and Iraq. It would not be false to say that the US has trained hundreds of "multipliers" of terrorist forces at no cost.
Iraq, Syria and now Afghanistan. Civilians have already seen and paid for episodes. And the American raids have also earned little, with fighters raised in flight to support the ground forces during the siege. Those ground forces have never fought. In a statement a few minutes ago, the government claims to have regained Kunduz prison. Too bad that this release should be read in another key: the prison was emptied yesterday of its 600 guerrillas kept inside. It would not be a mistake to compare the resumption of Kunduz prison with the taking of the Bastille. At least in the latter there were always 82 soldiers even if they were disabled. The Taliban, however, still control large areas of the city. And even in this case, it is not clear how 500 men can control a city of 300 thousand people.
From the Pentagon (in Afghanistan the US still has 9.800 soldiers) they already know the answer: the numerous police checkpoints have been abandoned while despite warnings and previous attacks, Kunduz has never been reinforced. Meanwhile, the Taliban are scampering about Kunduz with impunity, looting what they can. Some photos on social media immortalize them on Red Cross vehicles. Their tactics are evident: to raid everything and then escape. Maintaining control of the city with such a small deployment of forces would be impossible, but nevertheless the government proved incapable.
In Washington, the fall of Kunduz raised new questions about President Obama's commitment to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan over the coming 16 months. Kunduz is just one example of what could also happen in Kabul. And at that moment the disaster will be completed. The conquest of Kunduz represents the first victory of Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, recognized as the new leader of the Taliban, whose strength is estimated at 35 thousand units: essentially a regional coalition. Mansoor disavowed the talks with the Afghan government (even though he participated in some cognitive meetings), questioning every type of preliminary agreement reached. It should be emphasized that the al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, confirmed the loyalty of the terrorist group in Mansoor.
The first victory for mullah Akhtar Mansoor
Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor should have been born, between the 1960 and the 1965, in the village of Kariz, in the Maiwand district, in the province of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. Of Pashtun ethnicity, belongs to the Ishaqzai tribe, of the Durrani tribal confederation. During the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, Mansoor joined the paramilitary group founded by Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi, leader of the Harakat-i-Inqilab-i-Islami. It was then that he met one of the leading commanders of the movement, Mohammad Omar.
After the war he moved and Quetta resumed his religious education. Arrived in Peshawar, he completed his studies at the madrasa of Darul Uloom Haqqania, the same as Omar, until 1995. Mansoor would have joined the Taliban to fight the warlords. Appointed head of security at Kandahar airport, following precise instructions from Mohammed Omar, he became civil aviation minister of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from the 1996 to the 2001.
In 2001, Afghan President Hamid Karzai granted him amnesty. The US, who knew well the profile of Mansoor and the other Taliban commanders, didn't believe me in their conversion and started a series of raids aimed at capturing or eliminating them. Having fled to Pakistan, he helped shape the new Taliban. In the 2006, the Pentagon has included Akhtar Masoor among the leading figures of the movement 23. Now it's the main one.
