Afghan soldiers prepare for last stand and UK troops head to Kabul to evacuate Britons

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The Taliban has closed in on the last major city in the north with fighters just 25 miles from Kabul as UK troops head to the capital to evacuate Britons.

Taliban fighters seized a province just south of Afghanistan‘s capital and launched a multi-pronged assault on Mazar-e-Sharif, a major city in the north defended by powerful former warlords, today.

Homa Ahmadi, a politician from Logar, says the Taliban control the entire province, including its capital, and reached a district in the neighboring Kabul province on Saturday. 

The Taliban have also captured much of northern, western and southern Afghanistan less than three weeks before the United States is set to withdraw its last troops.

Munir Ahmad Farhad, a spokesman for the provincial governor in northern Balkh province, meanwhile said the Taliban attacked the city of Mazar-e-Sharif from several directions, setting off heavy fighting on its outskirts. There was no immediate word on casualties.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had flown to Mazar-e-Sharif on Wednesday to rally the city’s defences, meeting with several militia commanders allied with the government.

Today he said he will not give up the ‘achievements’ of the last 20 years and that ‘consultations’ are under way, in a brief and vague televised address — his first public appearance in days. 

The Taliban captured much of southern Afghanistan in recent days in a rapid offensive that has raised fears of a full takeover. Their lightning advance has left the Western-backed government in control of a smattering of provinces in the center and east, as well as Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif.

Foreign forces’ withdrawal and the swift retreat of Afghanistan’s own troops — despite hundreds of billions of dollars in US aid over the years — has raised fears the Taliban could return to power or the country could be plunged into civil war.

The first Marines from a contingent of 3,000 arrived on Friday to help partially evacuate the US Embassy. The rest are set to arrive by Sunday, and their deployment has raised questions about whether the administration will meet its August 31 withdrawal deadline.

And 600 British troops will land in Kabul today to to evacuate Britons. Boris Johnson said last night there ‘isn’t a military solution’ to be had in Afghanistan.

But today, the former head of the army said Britain should consider launching a humanitarian aid operation to alleviate the growing refugee crisis in Afghanistan. 

Lord Dannatt said the country was facing a ‘tragedy in the making’ with a growing humanitarian crisis centred on Kabul.

‘It is okay to extract our British citizens. What about mounting a humanitarian operation in Kabul to look after some of the refugees, to build some camps, bring in some humanitarian supplies?’ he told BBC Breakfast.

‘At least let’s show to the Afghan government we are not completely abandoning them and that we still stand side by side with them. It is quite possible to do that.

‘I think our Government should be thinking about that kind of response even though it has now pulled the plug on our wider military response.

‘There may come a moment when our last troops have got to go but until that point let us do what we can to help with the humanitarian crisis, even if we have given up helping on the military side.’

The Taliban today released a video in which an unnamed insurgent announced the takeover of the main radio station in the southern city of Kandahar, which fell to the insurgents earlier this week.

The station has been renamed the Voice of Sharia, or Islamic law. He said all employees were present and would broadcast news, political analysis and recitations of the Quran, the Islamic holy book. It appears the station will no longer play music.

It was not clear if the Taliban had purged the previous employees or allowed them to return to work. Most residents of Kandahar sport the traditional dress favored by the Taliban. The man in the video congratulated the people of Kandahar on the Taliban’s victory.

The Taliban have operated mobile radio stations over the years, but have not operated a station inside a major city since they ruled the country from 1996-2001. At that time, they also ran a station called Voice of Sharia out of Kandahar, the birthplace of the militant group. Music was banned.

It comes after the Taliban was accuse of tarring men accused of theft and parading them around the streets of newly-captured city Herat with fears that Kabul could fall within days or weeks sparking increasingly urgent evacuation efforts by British and American soldiers. 

The pictures shared by Afghan journalist Bilal Sarway show men tarred in black with nooses around their necks being dragged through the streets by armed gunmen, were shared online in the wake of the Taliban seizing control of Herat on Thursday. 

With the 20th anniversary to 9/11 looming, Afghanistan risks falling to the Taliban after the militant group seized control of two thirds of the nation following the prolonged withdrawal of US and UK troops.

Some reports have claimed that the Taliban is as little as 50 miles from Kabul, but the Pentagon yesterday held a press conference insisting that the Afghan capital is not in immediate danger of falling. 

The blitz through Afghanistan’s southern heartland means the insurgents now hold half of the country’s 34 provincial capitals and control more than two-thirds of the nation. 

US President Joe Biden, whose announcement of a 31 August withdrawal appears to have led to the collapse of the Afghan National Army is spending a long weekend at Camp David.   

Taliban commanders have ‘vowed to enter Kabul like a roaring lion’ as their rampage towards the strategic stronghold, and capital of the country, continues.

The Times reports one senior figure saying: ‘We will enter Kabul like a roaring lion soon, God willing, hopefully within this month and wrap up the American puppets who are already in a state of fear.

‘Their silence on our triumphs in the south and west speaks for itself and they are hiding like cowards.’

Boris Johnson said on Thursday night that it is not ‘realistic’ to expect outside powers to impose a ‘combat solution’ on Afghanistan as the Taliban’s surging advance closes on Kabul and British and US troops start to arrive to evacuate Westerners. 

The Prime Minister said: ‘There isn’t a military solution. Thanks to the efforts of the UK armed services and all the sacrifices they made we have seen no al Qaida attacks against the West for a very long time.’

‘I think we have got to be realistic about the power of the UK or any power to impose a military solution — a combat solution — in Afghanistan.’

He spoke after the Taliban seized large swathes of Helmand province , where hundreds of UK troops died over more than a decade of fighting that has seen 454 UK personnel killed since 9/11.  

‘What we certainly can do is work with all our partners in the region around the world who share an interest with us in preventing Afghanistan once again becoming a breeding ground for terror.’  

After a week of intense fighting saw the Taliban seize control of swathes of the country, the Prime Minister said the UK can be ‘extremely proud’ of its role in the last 20 years.

But after leading a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee yesterday, Mr Johnson insisted there was no military solution to the deteriorating security situation.  

And he denied that the sacrifices made by British forces in Afghanistan had been in vain.

‘I don’t think that it was in vain. If you look back at what has happened over the last 20 years there was a massive effort to deal with a particular problem that everybody will remember after 9/11,’ he said.

‘That was successful. To a very large extent the threat from al Qaida on the streets of our capital, around the UK, around the whole of the West was greatly, greatly reduced.

‘I believe it was right, it was worth it and what we must do now is not turn our backs on Afghanistan.’

Some 600 troops are due to deploy to Kabul to evacuate British nationals as a mass exodus begins to escape the ravages of the hardliners.  

He finally addressed the situation after fierce criticism from Labour and even his own MPs over his silence on the issue. 

The crisis worsened on Thursday as the Taliban continued its bloody advance, seizing control of Afghanistan’s second largest city Kandahar.

It now controls more than two-thirds of the country and is closing in on the capital Kabul.

Mr Johnson said it was not realistic to expect outside powers to impose a ‘combat solution’ on Afghanistan.

‘There isn’t a military solution. Thanks to the efforts of the UK armed services and all the sacrifices they made, we have seen no al-Qaeda attacks against the West for a very long time,’ he said.

‘I think we have got to be realistic about the power of the UK or any power to impose a military solution, a combat solution, in Afghanistan. What we certainly can do is work with all our partners in the region around the world who share an interest with us in preventing Afghanistan once again becoming a breeding ground for terror.’

Mr Johnson insisted the 457 British military personnel killed in the country had not died ‘in vain’ and said the military intervention that began 20 years ago was right and had been ‘worth it’.

He suggested he had no choice but to pull out troops as he was dealing with the ‘consequences’ of the US’s decision to withdraw.

Tory MPs had earlier accused him of a ‘shameful’ silence as the situation deteriorated and questioned whether he had done enough to persuade Joe Biden to not pull out US troops.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace yesterday said the US withdrawal was a ‘mistake’ and the West will ‘probably pay the consequences’.

He voiced fears about the resurgence of al-Qaeda – the terror group behind 9/11 – who he warned could plot attacks on British soil.

He told Sky News: ‘Of course I am worried, it is why I said I felt this was not the right time or decision to make because, of course, al-Qaeda will probably come back, certainly would like that type of breeding ground.

‘That is what we see – failed states around the world lead to instability, lead to a security threat to us and our interests.’

He refused to rule out further military action in the country, telling LBC: ‘I’m going to leave every option open. If the Taliban have a message from last time, you start hosting al-Qaeda, you start attacking the West or countries, we could be back.’ 

Mr Johnson faced growing calls from some of his own backbenchers as well as opposition party politicians for Parliament to be recalled on Thursday night.

The Lib Dems demanded MPs are brought back from their summer break and shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said Labour could join the push to hold the Government to account if it did not show a clear strategy.

Tobias Ellwood, the Tory chairman of the Commons defence committee, urged Mr Johnson to call an emergency session of the UN Security Council and to ‘consider recall of Parliament to seek views on leading a non-US led coalition and prevent a full scale civil war’.

Grieving families of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan also spoke of their anger as the Taliban captured territory UK troops fought and died to protect.

Donald Trump and the Taliban signed a deal last February for the US to withdraw from Afghanistan. Joe Biden has continued with the withdrawal timetable, with all troops due to have left by the symbolic date of September 11 – the 20th anniversary of the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.

The UK Government announced on Thursday around 600 troops are being deployed to help evacuate British nationals and former Afghan staff.

Meanwhile in Kabul, US troops sent to evacuate embassy staff reportedly started to arrive at the international airport, with more expected over the next 24 hours.

And hundreds of thousands of Afghans have fled their homes amid fears the country will return to the brutal, repressive rule imposed by the previous Taliban government. The UN Refugee Agency said nearly 250,000 Afghans have fled their homes since the end of May. 

The announcement came hours after the Home Office said Home Secretary Priti Patel had taken on the role’s responsibilities following criticism of the Government for failing to replace James Brokenshire – who had left the post last month.

The Pentagon claimed on Friday it did not believe Kabul was under imminent threat from the rapid Taliban advance, as the first of 3000 U.S. troops arrived in the Afghan capital to protect embassy staff.

Earlier Taliban fighters seized the country’s second and third biggest cities, and their fighters closed to within 50 miles of Kabul.

The speed of their advance has sent Western nations scrambling to bring home civilian staff.

And a defence official told the Associated Press that an attack on Kabul could come within days.

Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby declined to say whether officials were surprised by the way Afghan forces had failed to slow the advance.

‘We are certainly concerned by the speed with which the Taliban has been moving,’ he said.

‘And as we’ve said from the very beginning, this still is a moment for Afghan national security and defence forces, as well as their political leadership.

‘No outcome has to be inevitable here. 

‘We’re obviously watching this just like you’re watching this and seeing it happen in real time, and it’s deeply concerning.’ 

Instead, he echoed President Biden and other administration officials in insisting that Afghan security forces held the advantage over the Taliban.

‘We will do what we can from the air, but they have the advantage,’ he said. ‘They have greater numbers. They have an air force. They have modern weaponry. It’s indigenous forces that can make the difference on the ground.’

The signs so far are that Afghan forces are struggling, despite billions of dollars in U.S. training and equipment. 

In some cases they have simply melted away or switched sides in the face of an insurgency emboldened by Biden’s promise to end the U.S. combat mission by Aug 31.

‘They have the benefit of the training that we have provided them over 20 years,’ said Kirby. ‘They have the material, the physical – the tangible – advantages. It’s time now to use those advantages.’

Yet the Taliban advance continued at rapid pace on Friday. They took four more provincial capitals on Friday, including Ghazni on the road south out of Kabul.

Staff at the U.S. embassy were told on Friday to begin destroying sensitive information or anything that could be used by the Taliban, according to a management memo obtained by CNN.

A former diplomat told DailyMail.com it suggested that plans were further advanced for fleeing the compound than officials had suggested.

But Kirby said the capital was not at imminent risk of Taliban capture.

‘Kabul is not right now in an imminent threat environment,’ he said. ‘But clearly … if you just look at what the Taliban has been doing you can see that they are trying to isolate Kabul.’

In the meantime, the first forces of a Marine battalion arrived at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport.

‘I expect that by the end of the weekend the bulk of the 3,000 that we talked about yesterday will be in place,’ said Kirby.   

Yesterday, militants seized Pol-e Alam — the provincial capital of Logar — which lies less than 40 miles south of Kabul, according to a local official. They also captured the key cities of Lashkar Gah — the capital of the southern province of Helmand – earlier on Friday, and the capitals of Kandahar and Herat on Thursday, tightening the group’s grip on the country.

 The loss of Helmand’s provincial capital of Kandahar in the past 24 hours comes after years of toil and blood spill by American, British and allied NATO forces. Estimates suggest those countries lost some 800 troops over the decades-long war there.

Britain alone lost more than 450 troops in Afghanistan. Just over 400 were the result of hostile action, and the vast majority of causalities were in Helmand province.

Former army officer and ex-defence minister Tobias Ellwood invoked Winston Churchill – the PM’s political hero – after the evacuation deployment was announced. 

Ellwood, chairman of the defence committee, said on Twitter: ‘What would Churchill say? This is NOT our finest hour. What happened to GLOBAL BRITAIN and AMERICA IS BACK?

‘The largest high tech military alliance ever – defeated by an insurgency armed with mines, RPGs and AK47s. We can and must do better.’

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace yesterday said that the withdrawal of the US, the dominant military force in Afganistan, had meant the UK had to leave as well. He said there has been no international will to carry on without Washington’s involvement.

But former defence minister and Afghanistan veteran Johnny Mercer contested the idea that the UK cannot act alone in the central Asian country.

The Conservative MP said the current situation was ‘deeply humiliating’, telling BBC Breakfast: ‘This idea we cannot act unilaterally and support the Afghan security forces is simply not true.

‘The political will to see through enduring support to Afghanistan has not been there and a lot of people are going to die because of that, and for me that is extremely humiliating.

‘It’s a world tragedy and we are going to reap the repercussions of this over many years to come.’