Pentagon spokesman John Kirby
WASHINGTON, Aug 10 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Pentagon said on Monday that the U.S. military will continue to support Afghan troops as Taliban militants seized several cities over the weekend.
The security situation in Afghanistan is “clearly not going in the right direction,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told reporters in a briefing.
“We will continue to support them with the authorities we have, where and when feasible, understanding that it’s not always going to be feasible,” he said. “But where and when feasible, we will continue to support them with airstrikes, for instance.”
He noted that the Afghan forces have the capability and advantages in combat with the Taliban, stressing the need for Kabul to exert both political and military leadership.
Kirby declined to speculate if the U.S. military will continue to provide air support for Afghan forces beyond Aug 31, the date that President Joe Biden had ordered the US military to end its mission in Afghanistan.
The US military conducted airstrikes against Taliban militants in recent days as the insurgent group made rapid advances in the battleground and claimed to have captured six provincial capitals after heavy clashes.
Many Afghan cities and about half of the country’s 34 provinces have seen heavy battles and street fighting in recent weeks as Taliban militants continued fighting against security forces.
Given the deteriorating security situation, the US Embassy in Kabul urged all Americans to leave the country immediately via available commercial flights.
US officials said that 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 centers, including Kandahar and Lashkar Gah, they said. But in locations where the commandos have not been sent in, regular Army forces have been overrun.
Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with his top Middle East commander, Gen. Frank McKenzie, on Monday, officials said. But defense and military leaders have not provided any new recommendations to beef up US operations in defense of the Afghans. The U.S. has been launching up to a handful of airstrikes a day on the Taliban, and officials said there has been no order yet to increase that tempo.
Senior officials from the White House National Security Council, State Department and Defense Department were in close contact with US embassy officials in Kabul on Sunday assessing the broader impact 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.
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 the 19-year combat mission in Afghanistan, the Taliban militias ousted from power by the 2001 U.S. invasion were back in control of five of the country’s 34 provincial capitals.
After routing the al-Qaida plotters of the 9/11 attacks on the US in the war’s first years, the US and its NATO allies stayed on for long years afterward, partly in hopes of fostering a Kabul-based government and military that was capable of withstanding the Taliban once Western forces finally withdrew.
President Joe Biden has said he is honoring 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 U.S. is continuing to launch airstrikes from other locations in the region to try to help Afghan ground forces knock back Taliban fighters emboldened by the US withdrawal. There are no US strike aircraft in Afghanistan, as the US troop withdrawal continues. So, US warplanes are traveling from several hours away to reach their targets.
Kirby refused to say how many airstrikes U.S. aircraft have done in recent days. And he declined to say whether the Biden administration might continue the airstrikes past Biden’s Aug 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 Afghan government and military leaders.
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. — NNN-AGENCIES
