Pentagon spokesman John Kirby speaks during a briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, Aug. 9, 2021.
The United States on Monday showed no signs of intensifying airstrikes in Afghanistan, despite the Taliban’s advance accelerating. A Pentagon spokesman stressed that Americans now see the fighting as a victory or defeat for Afghan political and military leaders.
“When we look back, it’s going to come down to leadership and what leadership was or was not demonstrated by the Afghans,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told a news conference. “Now it is their country to defend. This is their struggle.”
The comments further distancing the US from the conflict came as Taliban militants captured two more provincial capitals in much of Afghanistan on Monday, after taking large tracts of land mostly in rural areas.
US officials said on Monday that military commanders have clearly made their assessment that the situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating. He said Afghan Special Operations Forces had been successful in deterring the Taliban in key centers including Kandahar and Lashkar Gah. But in places where commandos have not been sent, regular army forces have been removed.
Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with his top Middle East commander, General Frank McKenzie, on Monday, officials said. But defense and military leaders have not made any new recommendations for strengthening US operations in defense of Afghans. The US is launching a handful of airstrikes a day on the Taliban, and officials said no orders have yet been given to increase that momentum.
Senior officials from the White House National Security Council, the State Department and the Defense Department were in close contact with officials at the US Embassy in Kabul on Sunday, according to a senior administration, the broader impact of the fall of Kunduz, the Taliban’s biggest and most significant takeover. were assessing. Officer.
The administration official, however, indicated that the Biden administration is sticking to its plan to end the US war in Afghanistan by the end of the month, despite the Taliban’s increasingly strategic advantage.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing private discussions. Kirby acknowledged that the fight on the ground “is clearly not going in the right direction.”
As of Monday, with three weeks and a day from its deadline to end its 19-year war mission in Afghanistan, Taliban militias ousted from power by the 2001 US invasion are back in control of five of the country’s 34 provincial capitals Were.
After turning away the al-Qaeda conspirators of the 9/11 attacks on the US in the first years of the war, the US and its NATO allies remained long, partly in hopes of fostering a Kabul-based government and military that enabled The Taliban had to face off once the Western forces withdrew.
President Joe Biden has said he is respecting a withdrawal agreement that President Donald Trump had with the Taliban. But Biden has made it clear that he is also determined to pull the US military out of its longest war.
The US continues to launch airstrikes from other locations in the region to help Afghan ground forces drive out Taliban fighters excited by the US withdrawal. There are no US strike aircraft in Afghanistan as US forces continue to withdraw. Therefore, American warplanes are traveling many hours away to reach their targets.
Kirby declined to say how many airstrikes US planes have carried out in recent days. And he declined to say whether the Biden administration could continue airstrikes past the date of Biden’s August 31 return if the Taliban advance.
Meanwhile, “we will continue to support them … where and when possible, understanding that this will not always be possible,” Kirby said of the Afghan government and military leaders.
The Biden administration says it will continue to financially and logistically support Afghanistan’s military, including contractors who help maintain the government’s air force from outside Afghanistan, after its withdrawal.
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