AP Intv: Afghan warlord slams govt, US quick goodbye

(9 Jul 2021) A powerful warlord in northern Afghanistan and a key U.S. ally in the 2001 defeat of the Taliban blames a fractious Afghan government and an “irresponsible” American departure for the insurgents' recent rapid territorial gains across the north.
Ata Mohammad Noor, who is among those behind the latest attempt to halt the Taliban advances by creating more militias, told The Associated Press that the Afghan military is badly demoralized.
He said Washington’s quick exit left the Afghan military logistically unprepared for the Taliban onslaught.
In an interview at his opulent home in Mazar-e-Sharif, the main city of the north, he said that even he had not expected the Taliban's rapid wins, particularly in nearby Badakhshan province in the country’s northeast corner.
He said in some areas the Taliban were small in number, perhaps even too few to capture a district, yet the military handed over their weapons and left.
Reports and photos widely shared on social media show some government officials in the provincial capital of Faizabad boarding one of the last commercial flights to Kabul.
The Afghan capital remains in government hands.
The 57-year-old Noor is one of the powerhouse players as Afghanistan enters what many fear will be a chaotic new chapter, with the final withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops.
He commands a personal militia with thousands of fighters.
Once the governor of Balkh province, where Mazar-e-Sharif is the capital, he effectively still runs the province.
As head of Jamiat-e-Islami, one of Afghanistan’s strongest parties, he wields influence across the north.
Though nominally united in opposition to the Taliban, he and other warlords are often bitter rivals.
With the government weak and the insurgents gaining, the potential for violent fragmentation is high.
The Taliban's capture of most of the remote Badakhshan province is particularly significant because the north has traditionally been the domain of the U.S.-allied warlords.
It was the only province that didn’t come under Taliban control during the group’s 1996-2001 rule. It was once a Jamiat-e-Islami stronghold, the home province of one of Noor’s predecessors as its leader, Burhanuddin Rabbani, killed by a suicide bomber in 2011.
The insurgents now claim control over more than a third of the 421 districts and district centers across Afghanistan.
They have also captured several border crossings with Iran, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, opening up potential revenues for the Taliban and cutting key transportation routes.
The Islam Qala border crossing with Iran was the latest to fall to the Taliban, on Thursday.
Noor was harsh in his criticism of the fractious Afghan leadership, saying it often left the army without reinforcements in battle or even food and erratically paid soldiers’ salaries.
He said Afghan President Ashraf Ghani rules with a coterie of four people, a reference to the president’s increasingly reduced inner circle.
U.S. President Joe Biden defended the withdrawal in a speech Thursday and said it would be finished by Aug. 31.
He urged greater unity among Afghanistan’s leadership, saying America has given the Afghan government the weapons, training and tools to sustain itself.
“The Afghan government, leadership has to come together,” Biden said. “They have the capacity. They have the forces. They have the equipment. The question is will they do it?”
Still, Noor said the signs of a dispirited military predated Biden’s mid-April announcement that the U.S. was ending its “forever war,” noting that Afghan army recruitment was already down by 60% and corruption was widespread.

Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter:   / ap_archive  
Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​
Instagram:   / apnews  


You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...