US Envoy Heads to Qatar to Press Taliban for End to Offensive

The United States envoy on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, “will press the Taliban to stop their military offensive” at talks in Qatar’s capital this week, the Department of State announced after the armed group seized a string of Afghan provincial capitals.

The department said in a statement on Monday that several planned rounds of meetings were scheduled over three days to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

“Ambassador Khalilzad will be in Doha to help formulate a joint international response to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan,” the department added.

Attending the meetings will be governmental and organisational representatives from the region and beyond, who “will press for a reduction of violence and ceasefire and a commitment not to recognize a government imposed by force”, the statement continued.

On Monday, the Taliban announced that it had captured a sixth provincial capital in Afghanistan in four days.

The armed group’s spokesman claimed it had overrun Aybak, the capital of the northern province of Samangan.

Amid the advance of the Taliban, the US is showing no signs of stepping up air attacks, with a Pentagon spokesman saying that Washington now sees the fight as one for Afghan political and military leaders to win or lose.

“When we look back, it’s going to come down to leadership and what leadership was demonstrated, or not,” by Afghans, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said at a news conference.

“It’s their country to defend now. It’s their struggle.”

US officials said military commanders have bluntly laid out their assessments that conditions in Afghanistan are deteriorating.

 

 

Afghan special operations forces have been able to hold off the Taliban in key centres, including Kandahar and Lashkar Gah, they said. But in locations where the commandos have not been sent in, regular army forces have been overrun.

US 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 defence and military leaders have not provided any new recommendations to beef up US operations in defence of the Afghans.

 

The US has been launching up to a handful of air attacks a day on the Taliban and officials said there has so far been no order to increase them.

There are no US attack aircraft in Afghanistan as the troop withdrawal continues, so warplanes are travelling from several hours away to reach their targets.

Kirby refused to say how many air attacks the US has carried out in recent days and declined to say whether the Biden administration might continue the air attacks past Biden’s August 31 withdrawal date, given the Taliban advance.

In the meantime, “we will continue to support them … where and when feasible, understanding that it’s not always going to be feasible,″ Kirby said of the Afghan government and military leaders.

Senior officials from the White House National Security Council, Department of State, and Department of Defense were in close contact with US embassy officials in Kabul on Sunday, assessing the broader effect of the fall of Kunduz, the largest and most significant Taliban takeover, according to a senior administration official.

The administration official, however, indicated that the Biden administration remains determined to stick to its plan to end the US war in Afghanistan by the end of the month despite the Taliban’s rapid strategic gains.

The officials spoke to the Associated Press news agency on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing private deliberations.

Kirby acknowledged the fight on the ground is “clearly not going in the right direction”.

By Monday, with the US three weeks and one day from its deadline to end its military involvement in Afghanistan, the Taliban appear to be gathering momentum.

The group was routed after the US invaded in the wake of the al-Qaeda-linked attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. The US and its NATO allies stayed on afterwards, partly in the hope of fostering a Kabul-based government and military capable of withstanding the Taliban once Western forces finally withdrew.

President Joe Biden has said he is honouring a withdrawal deal that President Donald Trump struck with the Taliban. But Biden has made clear he also is determined to extract US forces from their longest war.

 

The Biden administration says it will continue to support the Afghanistan military financially and logistically, including with contractors helping maintain the government’s air force, from outside Afghanistan after the withdrawal.

 

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