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Various news media report.
Much of the country has already fallen.
Capital expected to be under taliban control very shortly.
UK and USA citizens being urgently evacuated.

The Afghan military forces have proved almost totally ineffective, with some reporting that they changed sides.

I very much doubt that the taliban will be satisfied with these gains, and expect neighbouring countries to be at risk.

Pretty impressive intelligence failure from the West, the complete absence of any opposition suggests the Taliban have significant low key support throughout the general population. A catastrophic failure over 20 years to 'win the hearts and minds' of the population and turn the masses against the Taliban. I expect Western citizens will all be allowed to leave fairly calmly over the next few days, I'm not expecting a massive firefight at the airport or passenger jets being downed at the end of the runway.

However, I fully expect the west will leave thousands of local staff, interpreters etc behind - to a dire situation for them and their families.

In the medium term, is there going to be a bit of a local rush between Pakistan, India and China to influence and fill the power vacuum.

Reports stat that the president has left the country, and that a "peaceful transfer of power" to the taliban is being prepared.

clv101 wrote: ↑15 Aug 2021, 15:15 Pretty impressive intelligence failure from the West

There was no intelligence failure from the west. We have always known that Afghanistan is

1. Medeval in its tribalism.
2. They are infamous for their cowardice in occidental military environments.
3. The country of Afghanistan is new and has many historical allegiances to different empires, so will not fight for a an artificial construct.
4. Th overarching reason the west was in Afghanistan was Pakistan was a nuclear warhead holder and has many Taliban sympathisers.

clv101 wrote: ↑15 Aug 2021, 15:15 A catastrophic failure over 20 years to 'win the hearts and minds' of the population and turn the masses against the Taliban.

The hearts and minds could easily have been won, but it would not have pleased the lilly livered guardian readers.
Guardian readers tend to believe in equality, every ism, which is anathema to your average tribal warlord.

clv101 wrote: ↑15 Aug 2021, 15:15 However, I fully expect the west will leave thousands of local staff, interpreters etc behind - to a dire situation for them and their families.

Maybe they could, i dunno, fight?

clv101 wrote: ↑15 Aug 2021, 15:15In the medium term, is there going to be a bit of a local rush between Pakistan, India and China to influence and fill the power vacuum.

The chinese have already recognised the Taliban gov"
You forgot to mention Iran.

adam2 wrote: ↑15 Aug 2021, 15:55 Reports stat that the president has left the country, and that a "peaceful transfer of power" to the taliban is being prepared.

Bet he will end up in Paris.
Usual place of coward despots.

Parliament to be recalled over this.
PM states that "Afghanistan must not become breeding ground for terror"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58224383

Stumuz2 wrote: ↑15 Aug 2021, 17:41

clv101 wrote: ↑15 Aug 2021, 15:15 Pretty impressive intelligence failure from the West

There was no intelligence failure from the west.

I'm thinking of the speed of Taliban advance, just last week Ghani's adminstration was given 6-12 months, possibly as little as 90 days. He was gone within the week. There's no denying the western drawdown / extraction hasn't panned out as expected.

Stumuz2 wrote: ↑15 Aug 2021, 17:41

clv101 wrote: ↑15 Aug 2021, 15:15 A catastrophic failure over 20 years to 'win the hearts and minds' of the population and turn the masses against the Taliban.

The hearts and minds could easily have been won, but it would not have pleased the lilly livered guardian readers.
Guardian readers tend to believe in equality, every ism, which is anathema to your average tribal warlord.

'lily livered' guardian readers have been influencing the Afghan government and US/UK/NATO military strategy for the last 20yrs ???
& this is the reason for the failure to 'win the hearts and minds' of the Afghan population against the Taliban ???
You really do post some absolute drivel sometimes.

It's a simple military and financial defeat.
The Afghan population knew which side their bread was buttered on.

THE HUMAN COST:
American service members killed in Afghanistan up to April: 2,448.
U.S. contractors: 3,846.
Afghan national military and police: 66,000.
Other allied service members, including from other NATO member states: 1,144. (454 British forces personnel)
Afghan civilians: 47,245.
Aid workers: 444.
Journalists: 72.
Taliban and other opposition fighters: 51,191.

THE FINANCIAL COST:
A Brown University study in 2019 looked at US war spending in Afghanistan and Pakistan and calculated it to be around $978bn (includes money allocated for the 2020 fiscal year).
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/fil ... 202019.pdf
It also noted that it is difficult to assess the overall cost because accounting methods vary between government departments, and they also change over time, leading to different overall estimates. Even so, the US must now have spent well over $1,000 BILLION

Britain's war in Afghanistan cost taxpayers £22bn, as final pullout underway:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... s-24261493
Revealing the cost in a written parliamentary answer, Mr Heappey said: “As at May 2021, the total cost of Operation Herrick to HM Treasury Special Reserve is £22.2billion.”

The US got tired of footing the bill.
We'll have to find out what the future consequences will be.

adam2 wrote: ↑15 Aug 2021, 15:04 Various news media report.
Much of the country has already fallen.
Capital expected to be under taliban control very shortly.
UK and USA citizens being urgently evacuated.

The Afghan military forces have proved almost totally ineffective, with some reporting that they changed sides.

I very much doubt that the taliban will be satisfied with these gains, and expect neighbouring countries to be at risk.

I think the Taliban will be very happy to hold on to Afghanistan for the forseeable future. They will try to avoid the US returning.

The Afghan government forces weren't prepared to fight to the death against the Taliban without US air cover. It would have resulted in the same outcome, but with a few tens of thousands of extra dead people.

The next day or two could be awful.

Video from the airport tonight: https://twitter.com/Luka_Duvnjak/status ... 94530?s=20

It's going to be very tempting for some Taliban outside the airport to be taking pot shots at the departing aircraft, even an AK47 might down a jet at 500m and if they have anything more sophisticated...?

Looking at https://www.flightradar24.com/HFM786/28cad07f it's interesting how little traffic there is going in and out. Except, I think some are missing. I did just see a small executive jet that left Kabul a few minutes ago - but looking again now and it's vanished?

clv101 wrote: ↑15 Aug 2021, 18:53 I'm thinking of the speed of Taliban advance, just last week Ghani's adminstration was given 6-12 months, possibly as little as 90 days. He was gone within the week. There's no denying the western drawdown / extraction hasn't panned out as expected.

I agree.
Imagine if Donald Trump were presiding over the political failure/debacle in Afghanistan, the US/EU foreign policy establishment would be loudly condemning the irresponsibility and immorality of American strategy. Since it is Joe Biden in the White House there is instead, largely, an embarrassed silence.

Mark wrote: ↑15 Aug 2021, 19:15 'lily livered' guardian readers

Yes Mark. Lilly livered.

A bunch of western poliico's tried to bring equality (doesn't exist) to a third world, tribal, medieval patriotic society.

Guess what? It failed.

This is turning into a major military intelligence failure:
https://www.reddit.com/r/afghanistan/co ... urce=share

I find it interesting that china was among the first nations to recognise a hard line islamic government who have taken power by force and not as a result of an election, yet china is frequently accused of enslaving and otherwise mistreating its own muslims.

Iran also rushed to recognise the taliban government, but that is less surprising as Iran is a hard line islamic country.

I expect an increase in large scale terrorist attacks now that the terrorists have another safe haven in which to prepare. I refer here to large scale attacks that need planning and significant resources. Not to random stabbings and beheadings, these don't need much planning, just a nutter with the price of a kitchen knife.

China is not at all squeamish about recognising brutal dictatorships. Especially ones that discomfort the west. My enemy's enemy is my friend. The Taliban is no more a unified force than than the Afghan government was. They are tribal and their main unifying beliefs are xenophobia and mysogeny. They may have some justification for the former. Brutality is beaten into the minds of their children from a very young age. It is a multi generational culture that it is very hard to break.