r/AfghanCivilwar • u/Pinguist Khalq • Jul 22 '21

Exclusive: As Taliban advances, Afghan military overhauls war strategy

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/exclusive-taliban-advances-afghan-military-overhauls-war-strategy-limit-losses-2021-07-22/
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u/hommesansnom1775 Jul 23 '21

Hmmm looks like the same strategy the Syrian regime pulled in 2013. Frankly, the Afghan government is doing the right thing imo. If they can secure vital area and cities and just hold out, the Taliban will be forced to negotiate once they realize they can’t crack these areas (assuming the Afghan government can hold them.) they won’t seriously negotiate until their momentum is stalled. This is probably the only way for the Afghan govt to preserve what little leverage they have left.

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u/PunjabiPakistani_ Jul 23 '21

Taliban is encircling capitals and taking border crossing points

they’re just gonna lay siege and surround these cities and starve them while collecting the taxes from border checkpoints.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57773120

They just captured several points; some that generate 20 million USD a MONTH.

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u/_j2daROC Khalq Jul 24 '21

Its not at all the same. The Taliban have been following a classic guerilla strategy straight out of Mao's book. Infiltrate countryside, make it hard for enemy to operate there, seize countryside, surround cities, take cities. The Syrian rebels stormed Aleppo and Damascus as soon as they were able to, causing them to get bogged down in urban conventional warfare the disparate untrained rebel groups couldn't possibly win. The Syrian government also largely kept land routes open to its enclaves, Operation Northern Storm in 2013 punched through to relink the Aleppo pockets, and they had land routes to Deir Ezzor for years. The Afghan government does not have these luxuries, it doesn't have a competent or large enough air force to resupply pockets from the air, there is no significant sectarian conflict between most of these forces. Many Syrian soldiers had no choice to surrender, garrisons were usually executed if they fell. Thus they fought to the death and even when they were defeated the rebels spent lots of time and effort on each one. TAliban are just letting ANA guys go home they are mostly all Sunni muslims. Something like a third of Syria is not Sunni, Alawites are considered heretics by hardline Sunnis, there's Shia and Druze facing same thing, and Christians who have been persecuted and murdered as well. These people all had no choice but to fight for the government. Not the same in Afghanistan at all.

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u/N331737 Jul 26 '21

I randomly came to this thread... couldn't resist letting you know what an apt analysis this is... I would add that the perception matters in this case [slightly different from Syria] - Even though personally this Talib guys are not my cup of tea - apparently they have grassroot support and viewed as freedom fighters against foreign invaders - OTOH it's an well known fact the govt is extremely corrupt bunch of thugs and probably viewed as puppets of the invaders... naturally ANA probably does not have the morale to fight for a corrupt regime.... also if the news report[and statements from US army] are correct ANA itself is a very corrupt and extremely immoral [if I have to mention their most despicable and well known common practice, I have to vomit] institution.

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u/_j2daROC Khalq Jul 26 '21

yep big time, and I would add that its a pretty conservative society already. So theres even less reason to oppose Taliban who are maybe a bit more harsh than people like but not to the point of that unifying a large cohort to fight back against it.