pakistani342
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New York Times article here
Excerpts below:
CHAHAR DARA, Afghanistan — The last time Afghans in the northern province of Kunduz felt so threatened by the Taliban was in 2009, just before President Obama deployed thousands of troops to push the insurgents back from the outskirts of the province’s capital.
Now the Taliban are back, but the cavalry will not be coming.
With just two months left before the formal end of the 13-year international combat mission, Western officials insist that the Afghan security forces have managed to contain the Taliban’s offensives on their own. But the insurgents’ alarming gains in Kunduz in recent weeks present a different picture.
---
“The Taliban could take the city any time they want to,” said Hajji Aman, a businessman in Kunduz City, who has been highly critical of the government’s response to the crisis. “They just don’t want to bother with holding and managing it right now.”
---
In Kunduz City last week, more than 300 elders from the Gor Tepa region gathered outside the governor’s compound to protest their dire situation.
The Taliban control the areas where they live, they said, and as a result they suffer constantly at the hands of the Afghan forces. Noorullah, an elder from Larkhabi village in Gor Tepa, said that a day earlier, a rocket had struck a home and killed two children.
“Either they should kill us or stop shelling us,” he said.
He and others made clear they were not in favor of the Taliban, or even the government, for that matter. They simply want an end to the fighting. As convoy after convoy rolled past, a policeman wearing a brown overcoat wandered by and listened. As the villagers outlined their concerns, he simply nodded.
“What they say is true,” he said, and then walked away.
Excerpts below:
CHAHAR DARA, Afghanistan — The last time Afghans in the northern province of Kunduz felt so threatened by the Taliban was in 2009, just before President Obama deployed thousands of troops to push the insurgents back from the outskirts of the province’s capital.
Now the Taliban are back, but the cavalry will not be coming.
With just two months left before the formal end of the 13-year international combat mission, Western officials insist that the Afghan security forces have managed to contain the Taliban’s offensives on their own. But the insurgents’ alarming gains in Kunduz in recent weeks present a different picture.
---
“The Taliban could take the city any time they want to,” said Hajji Aman, a businessman in Kunduz City, who has been highly critical of the government’s response to the crisis. “They just don’t want to bother with holding and managing it right now.”
---
In Kunduz City last week, more than 300 elders from the Gor Tepa region gathered outside the governor’s compound to protest their dire situation.
The Taliban control the areas where they live, they said, and as a result they suffer constantly at the hands of the Afghan forces. Noorullah, an elder from Larkhabi village in Gor Tepa, said that a day earlier, a rocket had struck a home and killed two children.
“Either they should kill us or stop shelling us,” he said.
He and others made clear they were not in favor of the Taliban, or even the government, for that matter. They simply want an end to the fighting. As convoy after convoy rolled past, a policeman wearing a brown overcoat wandered by and listened. As the villagers outlined their concerns, he simply nodded.
“What they say is true,” he said, and then walked away.
