When the Biden administration announced the retreat from Afghanistan I tried to predict what the Taliban would do:
With Biden announcing a final day for the retreat the Taliban are likely to prolong their ceasefire with the U.S. until that day but will continue their fight against Afghan government forces and ISIS. They will probably wait with overrunning the cities the government forces currently still hold until the last foreign soldier has left. Then the government forces are likely to fall apart and the warlords who currently rule in Kabul will fight with each other and the Taliban. A year or two later the Taliban will have the whole country under control.
The first sentence seems to hold so far. On Saturday one lonely missile was fired at Bagram airbase. But it caused no damage and was not part of a larger attack.
The second sentence turned out to be wrong. As the U.S. has breached its agreement with the Taliban by staying longer the May 1, the Taliban have also stopped to fulfill their part of the deal. The so far postponed spring offensive has now been launched with strong attacks all over the country.
Yesterday the Taliban made the first attempt to catch Lashkar-gah, the capital of Helmand province in the South.
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Before the attack some 18 Afghan army outposts along the road between Kandahar and Lashkargah and between Farah and Lashkagah were overrun. With the roads closed the commando units that defend the city had a difficult time:
Attaullah Afghan, the head of Helmand's provincial council, said the Taliban had launched their huge offensive on Monday from multiple directions, attacking checkpoints around the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, taking over some of them.
Afghan security forces had launched air strikes and deployed elite commando forces to the area. The insurgents had been pushed back but fighting was continuing on Tuesday and hundreds of families had been displaced, he added.
Another schwerpunkt is south of Kabul. On Friday a suicide bomb exploded in front of a guest house in Pul-e'Alam. No suicide bombing had occurred while the agreement with the U.S. had held. Heavy fighting also took place around Ghazni city.
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The Taliban will try to connect the yellow areas which they already hold. They will block the roads between the larger cities and they will cut the units stationed there off from resupplies.
The Afghan army has helicopters and light bombers which can help to reinforce isolated garrisons and to keep the Taliban at bay. But the maintenance for many of these is done by 'western' contractors who are likely to leave together with the 'western' troops. The Afghan air force still has some 90 Russian made Mi-18 transport helicopters which can be locally maintained. But most of these are used for special operations raids and are not available to support the general security forces.
From the current Afghan government's perspective the situation looks grim. That is why President Ashraf Ghani, who had previously rejected any power sharing, is now agreeing to form a transition government and to eventually step aside:
The first topics of negotiation must be reaching the desired end state and putting in place a comprehensive cease-fire to bring peace and respite to the daily lives of the Afghan people and to restore credibility and faith in the peacemaking process. Because cease-fires established during peace negotiations often fall apart, however, it is critical that we have international monitoring.
Next, the parties would have to discuss and decide on a transitional administration. Although the structure of the republic must remain intact, a peace administration would maintain order and continuity while elections were planned and held. This transitional authority would have a short tenure, and it would end as soon as presidential, parliamentary, and local elections determined the country’s new leadership. I would not run for office in such an election, and I would readily resign the presidency before the official end of my current term if it meant that my elected successor would have a mandate for peace.
The Taliban are unlikely to agree to such a process. They do not believe in elections. They believe that they are winning and have no reason to share power with anyone. Ashraf Ghani knows this. But his government may hold onto the largest cities as long as the money keeps flowing. That why he is using his Foreign Affairs piece to threaten the west with a refugee crisis and to beg for further support:
There must be an orderly political process to transfer authority so that the security forces are not left without leadership and direction. Moreover, it is critically important that the United States and NATO fulfill their existing commitments to fund the ANDSF. This is perhaps the single most important contribution that the international community can make to a successful transition to peace in Afghanistan.
Ghani adds some brave talk:
The main risk to peace, however, is a Taliban miscalculation. The Taliban still believe their own narrative that they have defeated NATO and the United States. They feel emboldened, and because their political leaders have never encouraged their military branch to accept the idea of peace, the greatest risk is that the Taliban will continue to show no earnest interest in making a political deal and will instead opt for continued military aggression.
If that is what happens, the Afghan government and the security forces are ready. As we prepare for peace talks with the Taliban, we are also prepared to face them on the battlefield. Over the last two years, more than 90 percent of Afghan military operations have been conducted entirely by Afghan security forces. Should the Taliban choose violence, it would mean a major confrontation over the spring and summer months, at the end of which the Taliban would be left with no good options except to come back to the negotiating table.
That seems overly optimistic to me. A better strategy may be to evacuate all troops from the south and east in an effort to hold the central provinces and the north. Besides – the Taliban do not need to win this year. They have fought for decades. There will be no more reason for them to negotiate at the end of this summer than there is now.
If the Taliban manage over the next months to take a large city, or if they commit some large scale atrocities, pressure on President Biden to intervene and to send reinforcements to Afghanistan will increase. The best way to preempt that is to pull out all troops as fast as possible. If no troops are there there is nothing to reinforce and the media will soon forget about the place.