Taliban Fighters Capture Kunduz City as Afghan Forces Retreat

By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN and MUJIB MASHAL
SEPT. 28, 2015

Smoke rose from a police station during clashes between Taliban fighters and Afghan security forces, in Kunduz, Afghanistan, on Monday. Credit Associated Press​

KABUL, Afghanistan — After months of besieging the northern Afghan provincial capital of Kunduz, Taliban fighters(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/refer...nizations/t/taliban/index.html?inline=nyt-org) took over the city on Monday just hours after advancing, officials said, as government security forces fully retreated to the city’s outlying airport.

The Taliban’s sudden victory, after what had appeared to be a stalemate through the summer(http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/w...rces-struggle-just-to-maintain-stalemate.html), gave the insurgents a military and political prize — the capture of a major Afghan city — that had eluded them since 2001. And it presented the government of President Ashraf Ghani, which has been alarmed about insurgent advances in the surrounding province for a year(http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/world/asia/taliban-rise-again-in-afghanistans-north.html), with a demoralizing setback less than a year after the formal end of the NATO combat mission in Afghanistan.

Afghan officials vowed that a counterattack was coming, as commando forces were said to be flowing by air and road to Kunduz. But by nightfall, the city itself belonged to the Taliban. Their white flag was flying over several public areas of Kunduz, residents said.

Announcing their victory, the Taliban issued a statement saying that the group “has no intention” of looting or carrying out extrajudicial killings.

But witness accounts and videos posted to social media showed some scenes of chaos. The insurgents had set fire to police buildings, and witnesses reported that jewelry shops were being looted, though by whom was unclear.

The Taliban also appeared to have freed hundreds of inmates from the city’s prison. One video showed a crowd gathered around the city’s main traffic circle, responding to the chants of a Taliban fighter. “Death to America! Death to the slaves of America!” the fighter shouted into a megaphone, as the crowd responded: “Death to Mir Alam! Death to Nabi Gechi!” Both of those men are local militia commanders fighting on the side of the government.

The Taliban’s largest victory in years came just over a week before the American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John F. Campbell, is expected to return to Washington to testify before Congress about the course of the war and what America’s continued involvement should be. Some 10,000 American troops are in the country, many of them focused on training or advising the Afghan forces, and the White House has not yet decided whether to keep a force of that number here for another year or begin pulling them from the country in the coming months.

(Excerpt)

Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/w...n-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1

What a revolting situation. Here we go again, except this time the enemy is taking land even before Obama calls his retreat. Hmm..., I wonder if Obama will repeat his speech of December 14, 2011 at Fort Bragg? Will Obama be telling Americans that we are leaving a peaceful sovereign country while our soldiers dodge bullets on the way out? This was Oblamer's war. This is the war Oblamer chose to fight. IMO, Oblamer couldn't form a strategy to fight his way out of a wet paper shopping bag. Progressives continue to blame Bush for the Iraqi war, but Oblamer has continued to prove he's incapable of winning any war. He's been way over his head in foreign policy and that was proved today at the UN when Putin gave Oblamer his lesson in foreign diplomacy.

 

It doesn't surprise me; now that the 10-year-long tsunami of US dollars flooding their way has dried up they'll carry on where they left off. They probably think 'Suckers'!

 

You can't be the overlords of heroin unless you stay there and guard your product. The Talban isn't going anywhere nor is the product. America cannot continue as heroin overlord from afar. American troops will stay indefinitely.

 

Quick flash the signal to attract SuperBush.

 

Is it time for an Anglo-American surge, I wonder.

 

If I still answered in the other thread of same topic:

Is anyone seriously surprised about?

No one ever conquered Afghanistan since 4,000 years and everyone who tried failed! As the Taliban commander told, the time is always running for the Afghans and against any conqueror!
From that time on when the West decided not only to fight off and eliminate Al Qaida, but “to bring Afghanistan democracy and western peace”, it was clear that they failed and so many experts told this … but no one wanted to listen to them.

Kunduz was a major bade of German Contingent in Afghanistan and still here the city was only hold due to their presence. After German Army retreated in 2014 and handled over to ANA, everyone with some brain knew that the countdown started until Kunduz will fall.
And the general countdown until Kabul will fall is still running too ... and can't be stopped, only extended!

Western ignorance is often really amazing ... like here in Afghanistan, when ignoring everyone's history and thinking we are better and do better, because we are in 21st century now!

 

Another big defeat for Obama and American progressives at the hands of Islamic warriors.

 

Obviously the Progressive Socialist supporters of Barack Hussein Obama will find a way to blame Bush for Oblamer's incompetence. The there's 400% plus increase in American military casualties in Afghanistan that no one has discussed since Obama was elected. The question remains, when will Obama completely retreat from Afghanistan?

 

The ANA and ANP are (*)(*)(*)(*)ing worthless. Every one of them.

Never in my life have I seen a group of armed men throw down their weapons and run so fast.

Now you see it all over the middle East. The only ones willing to fight, fight for ISIS. The rest of the men have become 'refugees' by running to Europe.

I wouldn't trust an Afghan to stand guard, let alone engage the enemy alongside me. Absolute cowards.

 

Can we also talk about how Obama greatly increased the amount of troops in Afghanistan compared to Bush who ignored that we were even fighting there?

 

Sure, because I've never seen a lot of sense in surging troops into a geo-strategically worthless backwater in the Hindu Kush where AQ had been driven from its bases and the talibs sent scurrying across the border into their safe havens in Pakistan where Islamabad could continue to use them to play their double-game with the U.S.

Perhaps, those considerations as well as the fact al Qaeda had declared Iraq the central battleground of their global jihad may have had something to do with Bush's unwillingness to expend more blood and treasure in Afghanistan?

Besides Obama making himself look tough fighting his "good" war in the remote hinterlands of Afghanistan and pursuing the myth that killing one marginalized old jihadist hiding in Abbottabad would magically make al Qaeda and the Jihadist Internationale disappear, what was the point in Obama greatly increasing the expenditure of blood and treasure in that (*)(*)(*)(*)hole while simultaneously announcing his timeline for abandoning that country to the Taliban? What does he have to show in Afghanistan that was worth all the additional sacrifices? While I posed that question to you, I think a lot of Americans would like to hear Obama answer it for them.

 

What did Bush have to show in Iraq that was worth all the additional sacrifice?

 

You were given an opportunity to praise Obama's surge in Afghanistan and now you're going to dodge my question?

No biggie. Like I said, that's a question for Obama to dodge just like you did.

 

A fairly peaceful and controlled Afghanistan until Oblamer decided it was his war to win. Problem now is that Obama with his ridiculous ROE's and supposed surge has cost more American lives with nothing to show for it. Oblamer will tuck tail as he has always done. Oblamer has released more terrorists from Gitmo even the body guard of bin Laden for his own purposes with little to show for it but those terrorists returning to the fight.

 

I totally agree with your assessment. Well, I wouldn't say they are total cowards. They like to hit and run. This could have been avoided only if Oblamer hadn't imposed harsh and idiotic ROE's and confined our troops to their bases.

 

How exactly was Afghanistan "peaceful" from 2001 to 2009?

 

Obama and progressives lied about the war in Afghanistan in 2008. They called it a "war of necessity" when they didn't really believe that. They simply said that in order to seek partisan political advantage in the election that year.

Obama and progressives then embarked on a half measure designed to provide them with political cover. I'm referring to Obama's escalation of that war at the same time he announced the American withdrawal. Obama sent American soldiers to fight and die in a war he didn't believe in and which he had no intention of fighting to achieve victory. That surreptitious policy was fundamentally immoral. That's not only on Obama, it's attributable to all progressives. They are all fundamentally immoral.

Now the world is closing in on them, and they taste the bitterness of repeated defeat by al Qaeda and ISIS. Obama and his supporters have lost the initiative, and the war will be fought on American soil.

 

Changing the subject?

I'll answer your question. All of the Greater Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and Central Asia aren't worth one drop of American blood. Thus, Bush made a tremendous mistake in his handling of Iraq. Having said that, Bush paid the price of victory in Iraq in blood and treasure. Obama walked in, claimed the victory as his own, and then promptly threw the victory away. And ISIS was born.

 

What victory did we have in Iraq?

 

The victory claimed by Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Check this out:

[video=youtube;tLteUGkvpOc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLteUGkvpOc[/video]

 

Obama's Tough Sell on Afghanistan - US News
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/06/22/obamas-tough-sell-on-afghanistan
Jun 22, 2011 - The candidate who criticized George W. Bush is now a war president himself. ... Obama called Afghanistan the "good" war in contrast to his criticism of ... of this war, and don't see it bringing success," says David Cortright, the ... War. "It's not worth it." ... "In Afghanistan, even with the troop reduction, there's no.

~~~~~~​

Fighting the 'Good' War: A Policy Analysis of President ...
http://www.academia.edu/208063/Figh...dent_Obamas_Afghanistan_and_Pakistan_Strategy
Fighting the 'Good' War: A Policy Analysis of President Obama's Afghanistan and Pakistan Strategy ... with the hope of the pacification and the ability of Afghanistan to maintain its own .... that the US seeks to achieve and a contingent policy even if these are not achieved. ... Further, the strategy claims it has an exit strategy.

~~~~~~​

Obama's Afghanistan Review | Grand Rapids Institute for ...
griid.org/2010/12/28/obama’s-afghanistan-review/
Dec 28, 2010 - If violence rises, it's because “we're taking the fight to the enemy. ... tags: Afghan War, escalating violence in Afghanistan, Obama and ... Apparently nothing can happen in the U.S. war in Afghanistan that doesn't mean good news. If ... partially a sham – designed to pacify Obama's powerfully anti-war base.

 

Yeah. They were lying.

 

Every time I was ever engaged and had ANP or ANA with me, they would look at us, see we were engaging, and then run and hide behind the tires on their trucks.

Every time.

They're useless.

 

We mopped up the Taliban strongholds in the SE (Marja, Sangin) between 2008-2010 and it was a fairly peaceful place once I left in 2010. Schools were open, markets, kids were out. 3/5 lost a ton of men taking Sangin, a year or so before that we kicked the (*)(*)(*)(*) out of the Taliban in Marja.

They were on the run everywhere. The Taliban was practically non existent.

 

Thanks Obama