Russia has been closely monitoring the security situation in Afghanistan amid the continued destabilisation of the war-torn country in recent months. Last month, Moscow warned that the Collective Security Treaty Organisation would “act decisively” to stop any aggression or provocations on the allied states’ borders.

The Russian military contingent in Tajikistan has redeployed from their permanent base in Dushanbe to the Harb-Maidon training area near the border with Afghanistan, the Central Military District has announced.

The redeployed forces include motorised riflemen units, tank troops, artillery and anti-aircraft troops and engineering corps forces, along with army aviation helicopters.

Video footage of the redeployment showed tan-coloured Russian tanks, BTR armoured personnel carriers, trucks, artillery systems and other units driving down local highways to their destination, flanked by Mil Mi-24 gunships.

The distance between their Dushanbe base and the training area is about 200 km, and Russian forces are said to have engaged in training along the way, including in convoy protection, manoeuvring in contaminated terrain, repelling of sabotage attacks and potential air assaults by a conditional enemy. Troops set up command posts, completed engineering work for firing positions and camouflage for equipment.

The Russian forces will be carrying out a joint exercise with Tajikistani and Uzbekistani forces starting next week, with the drills, taking place from 5-10 August, occurring against the background of the deterioration of the security situation in Afghanistan, which borders both Central Asian nations to their south.

Tajikistan is a member of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation, which also includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia as members. Uzbekistan is not a member of the security bloc, but maintains close security and military ties with Russia as well.

Also on Wednesday, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu promised that troops from the 201st Military Base would provide Dushanbe all necessary assistance in the event that the country’s security is threatened.

Russian 201th base to provide military aid to Tajikistan in case the security of the state gets undermined due to the situation in #Afghanistan – Sergei #Shoigu at the session of the #SCO Council of Defence Ministers https://t.co/rHUQCoMpss#

“The 201st Military Base is in Tajikistan to maintain stability and tranquillity in this region of one of the CSTO’s members in Central Asia,” he added.

Shoigu further indicated that the Russian military was closely monitoring the movements of Daesh (ISIS)* militants to Afghanistan from various other countries. He stressed that Moscow continues to “hope very much” that Afghanistan’s warring parties will be able to reach some kind of consensus and reconciliation to prevent the situation from destabilising further.

Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to hold series of military exercises due to the threats related to the sudden #US and @NATO troops' withdrawal from Afghanistan – #SergeiShoigu on meeting with Defence Minister of Tajikistan https://t.co/1CXEh0UZ0v

Shoigu went on to criticise the US for its “hasty” retreat from Afghanistan, saying the speed of the withdrawal provoked “an additional sharp jump” in tensions and a “surge in hostilities.”

“At the same time, the Americans are more concerned with the creation of new transit routes and logistical structures in Central Asian states and the deployment of their military bases and facilities there,” the minister said. Nothing good could come of such efforts, according to Shoigu, and would “only result in a long-term presence of the NATO alliance in the region and additional instability”.

The 201st Military base is Russia’s largest military facility abroad, and is situated in two cities – Dushanbe and Bokhtar. Its forces include motorised rifle, tank, artillery, reconnaissance and air defence units, as well as communications and NBC protection troops.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/asia/202107281083478264-watch-mass-redeployment-of-russian-forces-in-tajikistan-amid-escalating-afghanistan-tensions/

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The muted American response to the Taliban siege shows in no uncertain terms that the U.S. war in Afghanistan is over.

WASHINGTON — If the Taliban had seized three provincial capitals in northern Afghanistan a year ago, like they did on Sunday, the American response would most likely have been ferocious. Fighter jets and helicopter gunships would have responded in force, beating back the Islamist group or, at the very least, stalling its advance.

But these are different times. What aircraft the U.S. military could muster from hundreds of miles away struck a cache of weapons far from Kunduz, Taliqan or Sar-i-Pul, the cities that already had been all but lost to the Taliban.

The muted American response on Sunday showed in no uncertain terms that America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan is over. The mismanaged and exhausted Afghan forces will have to retake the cities on their own, or leave them to the Taliban for good.

The recent string of Taliban military victories has not moved President Biden to reassess his decision to end the U.S. combat mission by the end of the month, senior administration officials said Sunday. But the violence shows just how difficult it will be for Mr. Biden to extract America from the war while insisting that he is not abandoning the country in the middle of a brutal Taliban offensive.

In a speech defending the U.S. withdrawal last month, Mr. Biden said the United States had done more than enough to empower the Afghan police and military to secure the future of their people. U.S. officials have acknowledged that those forces will struggle, but argue they must now fend for themselves.

So far, the administration’s sink-or-swim strategy has not shown promising results.

Over the past week, Taliban fighters have moved swiftly to retake cities around Afghanistan, assassinated government officials, and killed civilians in the process. Throughout this, American officials have publicly held out hope that Afghan forces have the resources and ability to fight back, while at the same time negotiating a peace deal with the Taliban that seems more unlikely by the day.

Leon E. Panetta, who served as defense secretary under President Barack Obama, said he had expected to see more U.S. air support on Sunday, but he did not expect the situation would improve markedly even with the help of American forces.

“Let’s face it,” Mr. Panetta said. “The most you can hope for now is some kind of stalemate” between Afghan forces and Taliban fighters, who have demonstrated little interest in reaching an accord since the American troop withdrawal was announced.

At the Pentagon, where senior leaders have reluctantly cut off most military support to Afghanistan, officials were on phone calls Sunday about the unfolding events around Kunduz, a city of more than 350,000 people. The United States has twice in the past intervened to retake Kunduz from the Taliban.

But defense officials said there were no plans to take action this time beyond limited airstrikes. Over the past three weeks, the United States has used armed Reaper drones and AC-130 aerial gunships to target Taliban equipment, including heavy artillery, that threaten population centers, foreign embassies and Afghan government buildings, officials said.

One official acknowledged that with only 650 American troops remaining on the ground in Afghanistan, a concerted air campaign was unlikely to undo the advances the Taliban had made.

Although the American military mission will formally conclude at the end of this month, American troops and their Western allies are mostly gone already. The U.S. handed over Bagram Air Base — once the military’s nerve center — to the Afghans last month, effectively ending major U.S. military operations.

Now, air support for the Afghan forces and overhead surveillance arrives from outside the country, from bases in Qatar or the United Arab Emirates, or from an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea.

Wesley Clark, the former top NATO general under President Bill Clinton, called the weekend’s events “a tragedy for the people of Afghanistan, and a consequence of American misjudgments and failures.”

Civilian casualties have skyrocketed. Nearly 2,400 civilians have been killed or injured between May 1 and June 30, according to a United Nations report released last month, the highest number recorded for that period since monitoring began in 2009.

When asked about the Taliban’s advances on Friday, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters that Mr. Biden had long been prepared to make “difficult choices” as part of his commitment to disengaging from Afghanistan.

Read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/08/us/politics/taliban-afghanistan-united-states.html

And please note that is failure has nothing to do with us — anti-war bleeding hearts (because no-one can hear us or want to hear us) — but with the US administrations always using a big stick to show they have a big stick. As the US wash hands, the water of purity is tainted by the blood of sanctity gone apeshit as it usually does...

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The former president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has described the Taliban as his "brothers" in an exclusive interview.

The BBC's Yalda Hakim also questioned Mr Karzai on when girls and women would be able to return to education and work. He said he had had conversations about this and that the Taliban has agreed they should go back.

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-59505688

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Hamid Karzai, the only Afghan president since the 2001 US-led invasion, has admitted his culpability in the corruption that has plagued the country for the past two decades – but argued an external power played a much greater role than he did himself. Speaking to the Washington Post on Monday, he blamed the US for his country’s fate.

Karzai took “full responsibility for the corruption and bribes in the delivery of services,” he told the outlet. “But the big contracts, big corruption, in hundreds of millions of dollars or millions of dollars, was clearly a United States of America thing.”

“The war in Afghanistan was not our war,” Karzai explained, clarifying his position between the US-backed “democracy” he ran and the Taliban government, which has allowed him to continue living in Kabul. Despite owing his power to Washington, he has controversially referred to the Taliban as “brothers” and denounced the 21-year war ostensibly fought against them.

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/news/569011-karzai-blames-us-corruption-afghanistan/

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KAZ 

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