- Taliban fighters were ordered to wait in the outskirts of Afghanistan because they were close to complete victory.
- Twenty years after the US-led army overthrew it, the fall of Kabul will allow the hardline Islamic organization to regain power.
- Many people have succumbed to the Taliban coming to power.
On Sunday, the Taliban were on the verge of complete victory in Afghanistan. Their fighters were ordered to wait on the outskirts of the capital. The government admitted that it was preparing for a “transfer of power.”
After the government army collapsed at an alarming rate, Taliban militants surrounded Kabul. Facts have proved that they cannot occupy the territory without the military support of the United States.
Twenty years after the US-led army overthrew the organization after the September 11, 2001 attack, the fall of Kabul will allow the hardline Islamic organization to regain power.
“The Islamic Emirate has instructed all its troops to stand at the door of Kabul and not try to enter the city,” a Taliban spokesperson wrote on Twitter, as local residents reported insurgents on the outskirts of the city.
“Until the transition process is completed, the responsibility for security in Kabul lies with the other party (the Afghan government).”
President Ashraf Ghani-who most hopes to resign in a few days or even hours-admitted the same things and urged the rest of his security forces to maintain in a video message posted to the media Law and order.
People are worried that there will be a security vacuum in the capital, because thousands of police and other members of the armed forces have given up their positions, uniforms and even weapons.
“This is our responsibility, and we will do this in the best possible way,” Ghani said a few hours after the Taliban occupied two nearby prisons and released thousands of prisoners.
The government said earlier that negotiations were under way to avoid bloodshed in Kabul and to transfer power to the Taliban.
The Minister of the Interior Abdul Sattar Mirzakwal said in a taped speech:
The Afghan people should not worry… the city will not be attacked and the power will be handed over to the transitional government.
A Taliban spokesperson in Qatar later stated that the organization wanted immediate control because he should assure foreigners the type of government the militants will lead.
“In the next few days, we hope to make a peaceful transfer,” Suhail Shaheen, who is based in Qatar as a member of the organization’s negotiating team, told the BBC.
The imminent takeover of the Taliban has triggered fear and panic among residents in Kabul who fear the organization’s tough Islamic brand.
President Joe Biden also ordered the deployment of 1,000 additional US troops to help ensure the emergency evacuation of the embassy employees and thousands of Afghans who are now worried about reprisals by the Taliban from Kabul.
This is in addition to the 3,000 American soldiers deployed in the last few days. There are 1,000 more that Biden announced in May that the final withdrawal of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan will remain in the country after the completion of September 11.
In view of the collapse of the Afghan Armed Forces, this decision has received more and more scrutiny, but he insisted that there was no choice on Saturday.
“I am the fourth president to preside over the US forces in Afghanistan — two Republicans and two Democrats. I will not and will not push this war to the fifth president,” Biden said.
The scale and speed of the advance of the insurgents shocked the Afghans and the US-led coalition that has invested billions of dollars in the country over the past two decades.
The Ghani government was completely isolated on Sunday after the rebels occupied Mazar-i-Sharif, an anti-Taliban stronghold in the north and the eastern city of Jalalabad.
Like most other occupied cities, the seizure of power occurs after government forces surrender or retreat.
A video posted on a social media account supporting the Taliban showed heavily armed fighters of the organization waving white flags and greeting locals in cities across the country.
Most fighters look very young, which suggests that when the Taliban were overthrown in 2001, they were probably babies or unborn people.
As the Taliban approached the capital, panicked residents poured into banks for the second day in a row, hoping to withdraw their savings.
Many people have succumbed to the Taliban’s rise to power.
Kabul shopkeeper Tariq Nezami said:
My only wish is for their return to bring peace. This is what we want.
There are also signs that people have been willing to change their lives to adapt to the rejuvenated regime.
On Sunday, someone saw a worker painting a billboard in a beauty salon with a charming bride.
For the tens of thousands of people who have sought asylum in Kabul in recent weeks, the overwhelming emotion has been anxious and fearful.
A doctor who came to the capital with 35 family members from Kunduz said that he plans to return today.
“I am worried that there will be a lot of fighting here. I would rather go home, I know it has stopped,” he told AFP, requesting anonymity.
