Af troops defending cities, trying to wear down Taliban

Tribune News Service

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New Delhi, August 11

Despite bleak US assessments about the holding power of Ashraf Ghani government in Afghanistan, some Indians have stayed behind in Mazar-i-Sharif city as former warlords and the Afghan Special Forces provide stiff resistance to the Taliban.

A Taliban leader said from Doha that India would have to show “impartiality” in order to mend fences with his outfit, Reiterating, what a Taliban spokesman had earlier observed, he wanted New Delhi to stop supporting Kabul with weapons and equipment.

Speaking shortly after the Taliban took into control a Mi-35 helicopter gunship gifted by India to Afghanistan after the capture of the Kunduz airport, sources here said the Kabul Government was pursuing the policy of wearing down the Taliban by withdrawing its forces to defend the cities rather than spreading itself thin in the entire country. The airport at Mazar was reported open and civilian flights were operating normally so far, they said.

Sources dismissed an unnamed US intelligence official as saying that Kabul would fall in 90 days as a personal projection. “The situation is very fluid and nothing can be predicted,” they said. Ghani has now turned to Abdul Rashid Dostum and Atta Mohammed Noor, who had rolled back the Taliban in 2001.The difference is that last time it was with the help of US air cover and other assistance from India, Russia and Iran.

Meanwhile, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said reports of violations that could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity were emerging from Afghanistan. These included “deeply disturbing reports” of the summary execution of surrendering government troops.