In early May, a Taliban commander called Muhammad Jallal, a tribal senior in northern Afghanistan’s Baghlan province, and asked him to deliver a message to Afghan government forces at various bases in his district.
“If they don’t surrender, we’ll kill them,” Mr. Jallal said.
He and other tribal elders obeyed. After several rounds of negotiations, two government bases and three outposts surrendered without a fight. More than 100 security forces handed over weapons and equipment and were sent home unharmed.
The Taliban’s strategy of coercion and persuasion was repeated across the country and unfolded for months this year as a focal point of the insurgents’ new offensive. The militants negotiated multiple surrender deals that handed them bases and eventually entire provincial command centers, culminating in a stunning military strike this summer that brought the militants back to power two decades after they were defeated by the United States and its allies.
The negotiated capitulations were just one part of a broader Taliban strategy that rapidly captured heavily defended provincial capitals and saw the insurgents march into the capital Kabul on Sunday with barely a shot. It was a campaign marked by both collapse and conquest, carried out by patient opportunists.
Each surrender, small or large, gave the Taliban more weapons and vehicles — and, essentially, more control over roads and highways, giving insurgents the freedom to move quickly and muster the next surrenders as security forces were gradually cut off from ammunition , fuel, food and salaries.
Each victory also contributed to a growing sense of inevitability that the Taliban would eventually triumph, especially after the militants devoted so much resources to winning the north, a traditional stronghold of anti-Taliban militias. When those outposts and districts fell, the Taliban achieved major propaganda victories, quickly spreading the word that they could overcome even stubborn resistance and keep their word to let soldiers and police officers walk away with their lives.
The result was a one-sided struggle between a flexible and highly mobile insurgent juggernaut and a demoralized government force abandoned by its leaders and out of help. When the first provincial capital surrendered this month, the major collapses came as fast as the Taliban could travel.
The Taliban triumph came just four months after President Biden announced on April 14 that he would honor a deal signed by the Trump administration with the Taliban to withdraw all US troops from May 1. Taliban, who had failed to fulfill most of their promises under the February 2020 agreement.
Taking advantage in May, the Taliban crushed government forces now forced to defend themselves, with only the occasional long-range US airstrike to fend off the Taliban’s power surge. The militants quickly expanded their control over the country’s 400-odd districts from 77 on April 13 to 104 on June 16 to 223 on August 3, according to the Long War Journal of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The Taliban also received money, supplies and support from Pakistan, Russia and Iran, analysts said. That included 10,000 to 20,000 Afghan volunteers sent from Pakistan, a safe haven from the Taliban, and thousands of other Afghan villagers who joined the militants when it became clear they were winning, said Antonio Giustozzi, a London-based analyst who has written several books on Afghanistan.
The volunteers have expanded Taliban ranks to more than 100,000 fighters by most analysts’ estimates of 60,000 to 70,000, Giustozzi said. That was more than enough to destroy a government force that stands at 300,000 on paper but has been eroded by corruption, desertion and a staggering number of casualties — U.S. officials have said perhaps only a sixth of that total was in combat this year. .
The key to victory, Giustozzi and other analysts said, was the Taliban’s plan to threaten and persuade security forces and government officials to surrender, first at the checkpoints and outposts, then at the district and provincial levels. as they passed through the countryside.
“They contacted everyone and offered the chance to surrender or switch sides, with incentives including money and rewarding people with appointments after the fact,” Mr Giustozzi, a research associate at the Royal United Services Institute said in a statement. London and the author of the 2019 book, “The Taliban at War.”
He added: “A lot of money has changed hands.”
The Taliban took advantage of Afghans’ resentment towards a corrupt and ineffective government that was unable to supply its troops or mount an effective media campaign to get the public on its side. In contrast, through social media and village elders, the Taliban hit home a message that the government was illegitimate and that the militants would soon restore their Islamic rule.
“Their reach has been fantastic. Their planning was very good. They managed to get through the element of surprise,” said Saad Mohseni, the chief executive of Moby Media Group, which oversees TOLO News, the leading independent news network in Afghanistan.
He added: “They took advantage of intra-tribal, ethnic, religious and ideological differences to win people over. And they took full advantage of people’s frustrations with the government.”
The nearly 20-year war may have been nearly won last winter, when the Taliban took control of the country’s major highways. Government forces had only lightly defended the roads, preferring to settle in the relative safety of outposts, bases and provincial command centers.
That was part of a government strategy, spurred on by the US military, to cede rural areas and focus on protecting urban centers and major counties.
Initially, the dominance on the highways allowed the Taliban to close down checkpoints and outposts at the district level, by forcing negotiated surrenders or simply overpowering impotent security forces. By midsummer, they were able to besiege provincial capitals cut off from supplies or reinforcements.
With the roads closed to government convoys, there was tremendous pressure at stake, but the Afghan Air Force struggled to provide air support, troops and supplies. But the Air Force couldn’t handle the load. Nor could US-trained commandos, who were dispersed to hot spots to perform tasks abandoned by soldiers and police.
Understand the Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan
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At the same time, the militants raised millions of dollars by taxing trucks and other vehicles — even providing proper written receipts across the country. And by controlling the highways, they were able to take control of several border crossings in July, allocating millions in customs duties for the government.
“It’s Military 101: Whoever controls the supply lines controls the battlefield,” said Sarah Kreps, a former United States Air Force officer and a professor of government and law at Cornell University.
The government has never recovered from the surprise summer attacks on anti-Taliban strongholds in the north, Giustozzi said. The government had expected attacks in the Taliban’s core area of southern Afghanistan, where security forces had resisted fiercely in Kandahar and Helmand provinces before collapsing earlier this month.
“The Taliban have adopted a strategy of pressuring key northern warlords to get them and their militias to defend their own areas, essentially preventing them from taking on a national defense,” Kimberly Kagan, founder and president of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, DC, wrote in an email.
Until the end of last week, the Taliban continued to enforce negotiated surrenders.
On August 14, Sahaifullah Andkhoie, a pro-government militia commander in Maimana, the capital of northern Afghanistan’s Faryab Province, said he had received several calls from surrendering Taliban commanders.
“The Taliban assured us that if we surrender, they will not kill us,” Andkhoie said. “Then I saw the Taliban confiscate weapons and ammunition from regimental headquarters.”
That night, the entire province fell into the hands of the Taliban. Fighters and government officials surrendered en masse, handing over a wealth of weapons and equipment to the militants.
With the support of US and NATO forces and air strikes, Afghan government forces had been able to hold all 34 provincial capitals for nearly 20 years, despite continued attacks by the Taliban. That’s what made events so extraordinary earlier this month: the rapid collapse of more than 15 major provincial capitals in just nine days.
The first provincial capital to fall was Zaranj in the remote southwest province of Nimruz, which surrendered on Aug. 6. It was lightly defended as government forces aimed to hold the much larger southern cities of Kandahar and Lashkar Gah.
Each subsequent Taliban victory freed up more fighters to attack larger provincial government capitals, swiftly and deadly along highways they now owned. Those capitals collapsed in quick succession as soldiers surrendered, deserted, or simply took off their uniforms and disappeared.
Troops in Kandahar and Lashkar Gah waged an ongoing battle, but those capitals collapsed on Friday. On Sunday, Taliban fighters speeded down open highways on motorcycles and captured government Humvees and police vehicles, and rolled unquestionably into the country’s capital.
Eric Schmitt contributed from Washington, and Najim Rahim and Fahim Abed from Kabul, Afghanistan.
