Al Jazeera :
The Taliban launched a multi-pronged assault on Saturday on Mazar-i-Sharif, a major city in northern Afghanistan, as it continues an offensive to capture more cities and provinces across the country.
The fighters have captured much of northern, western and southern Afghanistan in a breakneck military operation less than three weeks before the United States is set to withdraw its last troops, raising fears of a full takeover or another Afghan civil war.
With the Taliban in control of two-thirds of the war-torn country, thousands have fled via the capital’s international airport. The US and European countries also started evacuating their embassy staff as the Taliban moves closer to the capital, Kabul.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Afghanistan is “spinning out of control”, and urged the group to immediately halt its offensive.
Haroun Rahimi, a law professor at the American University of Afghanistan, said the Afghan government’s leverage is “shrinking”.
President Ghani is “not in control anymore,” Rahimi told Al Jazeera. “It’s not about President Ghani anymore, it’s about making the transition as bloodlessly, as orderly and as swiftly as possible.” According to him, if Kabul falls under pressure, all hopes for a political settlement will be lost.
Rahimi believes that the government needs to be handed over to a transitional authority – one that has the “credibility to negotiate on behalf of the anti-Taliban camp”, with the Taliban for some sort of power sharing agreement.
In a televised speech, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani addressed the nation for the first time since the Taliban made major gains in recent days.
Ghani said “widespread consultations with representatives of the people and leaders and with our international partners” are being carried out in a “speedy manner”.
“In the current situation, the remobilisation of our security and defense forces is our top priority, and serious steps are being taken in this regard,” he said.
“I would like to assure you as your president … we are going to prevent further displacement of people,” Ghani added, without providing more details.
Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Kabul, said the president has become “increasingly embattled by this crisis”.
“There has been an awful lot of speculation that there might be some kind of change in leadership … Even possibly that he might be standing back from government,” McBride said.
But, Ghani seems to have “recommitted himself to carrying on the struggle,” McBride said, despite having a lot of pressure on him that there needs to be a political solution to the crisis.
AFP adds: Twenty years of investment that cost $2 trillion and nearly 2,500 US lives were disintegrating within days as the Taliban seized two of the largest cities and closed in on the capital Kabul.
The Taliban’s stunning advances in Afghanistan threaten to be a stain on President Joe Biden’s record, but he has stood firm on withdrawing US troops and believes the public is with him.
Twenty years of investment that cost $2 trillion and nearly 2,500 US lives were disintegrating within days as the Islamist insurgents seized two of the largest cities with little resistance and closed in on the capital Kabul.
Republican rivals predictably attacked Biden but he also faced the most critical coverage of his presidency, with television networks juxtaposing images of Afghanistan’s collapse with his remarks a little more than a month ago that “the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”
In a scathing editorial, The Washington Post said that Biden had put at risk the real progress in Afghanistan since 2001 including education for girls, banned by the Taliban when they last ruled.
“Afghan lives ruined or lost will belong to Mr. Biden’s legacy just as surely as any US dollars and lives his decision may save,” the newspaper wrote.
The United States was rushing back 3,000 troops-roughly the same number removed in this month’s final withdrawal-to evacuate embassy staff and was flying out Afghans whose work with US forces puts them at risk.
But Biden, who through his decades in public life earned a reputation for empathy, has been unmoved when asked about Afghan losses and instead speaks of protecting US troops, a deeply personal matter as his late son Beau served in Iraq.
Both the former vice president and US opinion polls have shared his view for years. VoteVets, an advocacy group, hailed Biden for finally “having the strength to stand up to those who want endless war.”
