With regards to Afghanistan the Russian Foreign Ministry seems to be a tad too optimistic:
MOSCOW, August 5./TASS/. The offensive by the Taliban movement (outlawed in Russia) in Afghanistan is losing steam and it has no resources for seizing major cities, including Kabul, Russian Foreign Ministry Deputy Spokesman Alexander Bikantov told a briefing on Thursday.
"The Taliban has no resources to capture and hold the major cities, including the country’s capital city Kabul. Their offensive is gradually running out of steam," he said.
Government troops have managed to regain control over the lost districts in some provinces, the diplomat stressed.
As of July 26 the Taliban controlled 223 districts and contested another 110. The government controlled 74 districts.
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That some district centers change hands more than once does not say much about Taliban resources. They certainly seem to have all they need and are gaining more with each district and province they take.
As for Mr. Bikantov's claim that the Taliban can not gain and hold major cities: The Taliban are currently contesting Lashkar Gar, the capital of Helmand province and also Kandahar. The recent attacks on those cities only slowed down because the U.S. has broken its agreement with the Taliban and is bombing their positions around those cities with B-52 bombers.
But the U.S. can not bomb everywhere and so today the first province capital, Zaranji of Nimruz province at the Iranian border, fell without much resistance. As of 2015 the city had some 160,000 inhabitants. It is not a big one but certainly significant.
Another city that is on the verge of falling is Sheberghan, the capital of Jowzjan province and the hometown of the Uzbek warlord 'General' Dostum. Earlier today the Taliban entered Dostum's house and later burned it down. Fighting within the city continues.
Dostum is well known for his brutality (and drunkenness). When the CIA in 2001 helped the Northern Alliance warlords to defeat the Taliban some several thousand Taliban surrendered in the northern provinces. Dostum brutally killed many of them:
More than 3,000 Taliban prisoners–who had surrendered to the victorious Northern Alliance forces at the fall of Konduz in late November–were crammed, sick and starving, into a facility with room for only 800.
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However awful their conditions, they were the lucky ones. They were alive. Many hundreds of their comrades, they said, had been killed on the journey to Sheberghan from Konduz by being stuffed into sealed cargo containers and left to asphyxiate.
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The militia leader whose forces allegedly carried out the killings is Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, one of Afghanistan's most ruthless and effective warlords.
Up to 200 prisoners were put into each 40 foot shipping containers and transported for days without opening the doors. Up to a thousand are said to have died.
But not all of Dostum's prisoners were suffocated:
A witness close to General Dostum's inner circle said he had seen three or four bullet-ridden containers and blood running from them. He blamed ethnic Hazara soldiers, but soldiers now guarding Qala Zeina said it had been Uzbek troops belonging to General Dostum.
The U.S. rejected to investigate the prisoner massacres and later made Dostum the Afghan defense minister. But in this round of the war Dostum, who only yesterday came back to Kabul from Turkey to direct the defense of his hometown, will be on the receiving side of revenge.
The Taliban are winning. Only where Afghan special forces, who can call in U.S. air support, defend the cities do the Taliban have difficulties. But there are not many special forces battalions around and the Taliban will concentrate on those cities that receive no additional government support.
With each city they take they gain in resources and men. Army and police units surrender and change over to the Taliban side. The first the Taliban did in Zaranji today was to open the prison gates. All previously arrested Taliban will rejoin their troops. Each army post and police station they overrun leaves them with more Humvees, ammunition and weapons.
There are also persistent rumors that a significant number of Pakistani Pashtun men are now fighting on the Taliban's site. Some officers of the Pakistani military may have laid off their uniforms to slip into Taliban dresses. It would not be the first time for them to do that. It may explain the very methodical operations during this Taliban offense.
The Taliban still need a large number of troops to gain the towns, districts and provinces all over the country. But after each such win they can reorganize. They leave a few administrators and a small number of troops behind and then move their main forces elsewhere. The more towns and cities have fallen the bigger is the concentration of forces the Taliban can achieve.
That Zaranji in the very west and Sheberghan in the very north are in the news today is because the Taliban work from the periphery to the center. That is why the big cities will only come under serious attack after the smaller are under Taliban control. Kabul will be the last city that will be fought over and the Taliban will likely be able to concentrate some 50,000+ men to fight that battle.
Kabul is already infiltrated and unsafe. Earlier this week some Taliban attacked the home of the Afghan defense minister. Today they assassinated the top government spokesman. There will be many more such incidents before the big push for the city will come.
The Russian foreign ministry spokesman seems to have not understood the Taliban's approach.
