The 2021 Taliban offensive was a major offensive launched by the Taliban against the government of Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 as the United States and its NATO allies gradually withdrew the last foreign soldiers from the country. The offensive coincided with the initiation of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan under President Joe Biden on 1 May 2021, and, from May to 20 June 2021, the Taliban - through local mediation, military offensives, and government retreats, captured more than 50 of the country's 400 districts. On 2 July, the United States evacuated its last major base in the country, Bagram Airbase, after 20 years of occupation; by then, more than 80 districts had fallen to the Taliban, and June 2021 had been the deadliest month for the Afghan military in two decades. In early August, Afghanistan’s provincial capitals fell at an alarming rate - many with light or no resistance - and, on 15 August, the capital of Kabul fell to the Taliban, leading to the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the restoration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
History[]
Starting on 1 May 2021, under orders from President of the United States Joe Biden, the United States military began to disengage and withdraw from Afghanistan, fulfilling a major campaign promise made by Biden during the 2020 presidential election, during which he had defeated the previous president Donald Trump, whose administration had overseen the renewal of peace talks with the Taliban and the formation of a withdrawal timetable for the long-running Afghanistan War. As foreign troops left the country, however, the Taliban grew emboldened and launched a new offensive in northern Afghanistan, where the Taliban has historically been the weakest. That month, the Taliban entered Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province in the south, but the Afghan National Army and US airstrikes pushed the militants back.
On 20 June 2021, the Taliban seized the entrance of the city of Kunduz before dispersing throughout its neighborhoods, while, to the west, the Taliban also entered the Faryab Province capital of Maymana, killing over 20 elite government soldiers and capturing dozens more ANA troops who had run low on ammunition. Even with the aid of the Uzbek, Tajik, and Hazara militia forces in northern Afghanistan, the Afghan government forces grew demoralized and were besieged in isolated outposts and bases which could only be supplied by Afghanistan's small air force. At the same time, the US Air Force's operations were scaled down due to more restrictive rules of engagement and the removal of American military aircraft to other countries.
On 29 June, the Taliban captured Baraki Barak in western Logar Province, with the garrison ultimately surrendering after the fall of southern Wardak Province and half of Logar made it impossible to continue resistance. That same day, the Khogyani CP west of Ghazni fell to the Taliban, but, on 30 June, the ANA recaptured Shinwari in Parwan Province in a rare success. Also on 30 June, Germany and Italy withdrew the last of their soldiers from Afghanistan, and the Kaldar district in Balkh Province fell to the Taliban, having launched a surprise attack from northwestern Kunduz Province. At the same time, Ahmad Shah Massoud's son Ahmad Massoud declared that his Jamiat-e Islami militia would wage a war of resistance against the Taliban in the north. On 1 July 2021, the Taliban were spotted driving captured T-54/55 tanks for the first time since their 2015 capture of Kunduz, and the garrison of Tagab surrendered that same day. On 2 July, US troops fully left Bagram Airfield without coordination with the Afghan military, leading to local civilians looting the airfield before the ANA asserted its control. It was also reported that, by then, the Taliban had captured 700 Humvees and dozens of armored vehicles and artillery systems from the ANA during the Taliban's northern offensive, and that the Taliban was at the door of Kabul. The last government positions in the Maywand district fell that same day, with ANA and NDS units retreating from the area without coordinating their retreat with the local militia or police units. On 3 July, Darayim and parts of the Badakhshan capital fell after several Jamiati militiamen switched sides.
On 4 July, the Taliban took control of several more districts as Afghan troops abandoned their posts and fled into Tajikistan via Badakhshan Province. The Tajik government reported the crossing of 300 Afghan troops onto its territory, while Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid reported that most districts fell without bloodshed. On the same day, another Taliban spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, warned that all foreign troops had to leave Afghanistan by the NATO deadline of 11 September (chosen by Biden as a symbolic end to the War on Terror, which began twenty years earlier with the 9/11 attacks on 11 September 2001) amid reports that the US military planned to keep 1,000 troops in Kabul to guard both its embassy and the Hamid Karzai International Airport. On 5 July, Afghan presidential advisor Hamdullah Mohib announced a counter-offensive against the Taliban in the north after the Taliban captured six districts in Badakhshan Province; by then, 1,037 Afghan troops had abandoned their positions and fled to Tajikistan, causing President Emomali Rahmon to call up 20,000 reserve troops. During the following days, other Central Asian CSTO members called up their reservists to defend their borders, and Uzbekistan approved a US request to harbor Afghan interpreters on their soil rather than abandon them to be killed by the Taliban.
Logar Province governor Abdul Quayom Rahimi and his volunteers
On 6 July, al-Jazeera reported that the Taliban advances forced civilians to take up arms and volunteer to defend their communities; in Parwan Province, local MP Zahir Salangi led 500 residents in defending Parwan from the Taliban coming in from the mountains. In the Logar Province capital of Pul-e-Alam, Governor Abdul Quayom Rahimi found hundreds of locals willing to join the anti-Taliban volunteers who had formed earlier in 2021, parading them in the streets on 5 July 2021 as a display of force. al-Jazeera also reported the recapture of dozens of the districts which had fallen to the Taliban, with the ANA recapturing some of the lost districts within days. However, an inhabitant of Parwan's Salang district reported that the Taliban had shot at houses, burned people's homes, fields, and stores, and spared no one and nothing. At the same time, the Afghan security forces suffered from funding and supply shortfalls, and the volunteering of 30,000 common Afghans to fight back against the Taliban was seen as promising by the government, but was not without controversy, as some questioned the wisdom of rearming people who had been previously paid to disarm and reintegrate into society.
al-Jazeera infographic on the Taliban's control of Afghan districts
Also on 6 July 2021, al-Jazeera "Inside Story" reported that 100 of Afghanistan's 350 districts were in Taliban hands, and that, by that date, only 650 US troops remained at Kabul Airport, while the majority of international troops had left the country. It was also theorized that the Taliban's offensive was intended to give the Taliban the advantage in the concurrent peace talks, and deputy UN envoy Peter Galbraith, a panelist for "Inside Story", said that, for many, the Taliban offensive conjured up memories of the Fall of Saigon in 1975 during the Vietnam War (although he said that, unlike the Taliban, Saigon fell to an organized military) and (more accurately, in his opinion) the fall of Mosul to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in 2014. Another panelist, American University of Afghanistan lecturer Obaidullah Baheer, opined that the Afghan military's decision to make strategic withdrawals from certain districts led to a sense of defeatism among the Afghan National Army and the reinforcement of the Taliban's visions of an imminent victory, but optimistically believed that the fighting would die down in the coming days as Eid al-Adha (20 July) approached, calling the offensive a "blitz" by the Taliban movement and claiming that the Taliban could not sustain the fighting for a prolonged period. However, Galbraith disagreed, saying that it would be impossible for a settlement to be reached which would benefit both the government and the Taliban, and he feared that, rather than taking control of the country as easily as the Vietnamese communists had in 1975, the Taliban would instead find themselves rejected as occupiers by the non-Pashtun peoples of Afghanistan, and a civil war would likely break out. However, Galbraith believed that President Joe Biden would not allow for Afghanistan to once again be taken over by the Taliban, and Baheer said that Biden's administration would not commit military suicide by allowing for Afghanistan to once again become a safe haven for terrorist groups. Given the last word, Kabul University lecturer Faiz Saland said that the United States' attempt at "nation-state building" in Afghanistan was a complete failure, and that the USA had failed to bring lasting peace, security, and democracy. Meanwhile, Reuters reported that the Taliban might present a written peace plan by the end of the month, as the Taliban had claimed to be in control of 70% of Afghanistan by then. That evening, ABC News showed video proof that the Taliban was massacring captured Afghan National Army soldiers with firing squads.
Afghan troops surrendering in Badghis Province
On 7 July, Taliban insurgents entered Qala-e-Naw, the provincial capital of Badghis Province, driving towards the city center amid fierce fighting. All government officials were evacuated to a nearby army base as 400 prisoners were freed from the city's prison by the militants and the city's intelligence bureau was set on fire. Governor Hisamudin Shams denied that the city had fallen to the Taliban, claiming that Afghan troops were still defending Qala-e-Naw. Special forces were deployed in response to the three-pronged Taliban attack on the city, and airstrikes were carried out. However, by then, Afghan commanders had told BBC about ammunition shortages and delays of sending support, and the fall of Qala-e-Naw marked an escalation in the offensive, as the Taliban had mounted successful frontal assaults on a city, and the Afghans could not rely on US air support to help recapture the city, as had been the case with Kunduz in 2015.
On 8 July, President Biden announced that the United States would end its military mission in Afghanistan by 31 August, and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed that the US military's Afghan interpreters would also be evacuated; meanwhile, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson outlined the plan for the final withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan in detail. At the same time, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said that the insurgents did not plan to attack the Tajik border; that same day, the Taliban had lost 69 fighters in heavy fighting with the ANA in Qala-e-Naw.
On 9 July, the Taliban captured the town of Islam Qala on Herat Province's border with Iran as Taliban forces captured Torghundi on the border with Turkmenistan, the Afghan security forces collapsed in Herat, and a spokesperson for the Governor of Kandahar prematurely announced Kandahar's fall to the Taliban. The Afghan Interior Ministry announced that its troops had "temporarily relocated" and were preparing to recapture the border crossings, but, by then, the Taliban claimed to be in control of 85% of the country. On 11 July, Australia withdrew the last of its forces from Afghanistan. On 12 July, Taliban forces entered Kandahar, and the Taliban also surrounded the city of Ghazni in central Afghanistan, while several Afghan security and customs officials fled to Iran to escape the Taliban. That same day, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Austin S. Miller, stepped down, and he was replaced by Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr.. Meanwhile, the Long War Journal reported that al-Qaeda was fighting alongside the Taliban, as were the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen in eastern and southern Afghanistan.
The Long War Journal's analysis of the Taliban offensive, April-July 2021
On 13 July, the Taliban said that they did not want to take the fighting in the mountains and the deserts into the cities. However, the Taliban warned against failed attempts at negotiations from the Afghan government, and the Taliban also condemned Turkey for offering to send troops to help protect Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. On 14 July, the Taliban captured the key border crossing of Spin Boldak in Kandahar Province along the Pakistani border. On the same day, Afghan special forces claimed to have killed 1,369 Taliban fighters in recent operations, including key commanders. Meanwhile, President Biden announced that the United States would initiate "Operation Allies Refuge" to evacute Afghan interpreters who had aided US troops during the war, and the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi succeeded in persuading the Taliban to stop the Turkistan Islamic Party's fighters in Afghanistan from crossing the borderand into Xinjiang to wage war against the Chinese government; Wang demanded that the Taliban make a "clean break" with terrorist forces. On 15 July, the Taliban proposed a ceasefire in exchange for the government's release of 7,000 captured insurgent fighters. A day later, on 16 July 2021, award-winning Reuters journalist Danish Siddiqui was killed while covering the ANA's attempted recapture of Spin Boldak. Vice President Amrullah Saleh accused Pakistan of providing close air support to the Taliban at Spin Boldak and other certain areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but the Pakistani government claimed that their air force limited itself to protecting Pakistani territory. On 18 July, the Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada - previously believed to have died or fallen severely ill from COVID-19 - released an audio message stating that he favored a political and stable solution to the conflict, in spite of the Taliban's major territorial gains, eschewing a military victory as a means of ending the war.
The ituation in Afghanistan on 22 July 2021: Taliban-controlled areas are colored white, contested areas are grey, and government-controlled areas are in red
On 22 July 2021, 100 people were gunned down by unidentified gunmen in Spin Boldak, which, by then, was controlled by the Taliban; the Afghan government accused the Taliban of responsibility. At the same time, Tajikistan held its largest military exercise, mobilizing 130,000 reservists in addition to 100,000 active servicemen and more than 1,000 military vehicles. The US House of Representatives also voted 407-16 to pass the "Allies Act" to improve and provide visas for Afghan interpreters who worked for American personnel during the war. That same day, the US Air Force carried out four airstrikes in Afghanistan, targeting Afghan military equipment which had been captured by the Taliban; one artillery gun and one military vehicle were destroyed. At the same time, the Taliban continued their siege of Kandahar, with all of the city bar the Daman district and the airport falling to the Taliban by 23 July. That same day, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen assured the international community that the Taliban would protect women's rights as long as women wore a headscarf or hijab and they were accompanied in public by a male relative. On 24 July, the Afghan government implemented a curfew from 10:00 PM to 4:00 AM in 31 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces in an attempt to curb the violence in the country.
An Islamic World News map of the Taliban offensive as of 25 July 2021
On 26 July, the United Nations representative for Afghanistan implored the Afghan government and the Taliban to protect civilians after a UN report revealed that 1,300 women and children had been killed in the first half of 2021. That same day, 41 Afghan soldiers and 5 of their officers sought refuge in Pakistan after they were unable to defend their military post. The Pakistani military provided the ANA soldiers with food, shelter, and medical care as per the established military norm, although there were plans to repatriate them after due process. On 30 July, the Taliban entered the provincial capital of Helmand Province, Lashkar Gah, capturing large areas of the city amid heavy fighting. On 31 July, Afghan government forces and the Taliban clashed in Herat as the Taliban captured several more border crossings with Iran and Turkmenistan; at the same time, the Taliban entered Kandahar amid heavy fighting.
The raising of the Taliban flag in Lashkar Gah
From 1 to 2 August 2021, the Taliban entered the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, and the US Air Force continued to provide air support to the Afghans as they battled with the Taliban in the suburbs. On 3 August, after the Taliban seized control of the local radio station, they began to broadcast their Voice of Sharia radio show. That same day, five Taliban inghimasi killed eight Afghan civilians in a bombing and shooting in Kabul which targeted Defense Minster Bismillah Khan Mohammadi. On 6 August, the Taliban assassinated the government's media chief Dawa Khan Minapal in Kabul; concurrently, they entered the Jowzjan Province capital of Sheberghan, and the Taliban captured their first provincial capital, Zaranj, in Nimruz Province. The next day saw the fall of Sheberghan, the capital of Jowzjan, and Abdul Rashid Dostum was forced to flee to the Khwaja Du Koh district, the last government-held district in the province. The US Air Force launched B-52 raids against Taliban positions in Afghanistan in an attempt to prevent the Taliban from overwhelming more provincial capitals, with five missions being flown each day, most of them from Qatar. The jets attacked targets in Kandahar, Herat, and Lashkar Gah in Helmand Province, but, on 8 August, the Taliban overran most of Kunduz and Sar-e-Pol as the ANA suffered from mass desertions due to demoralization and Taliban propaganda. Pro-government forces were besieged in Kunduz's military base and airport as the city fell to the Taliban, Taloqan in Takhar soon followed, and the fall of Taloqan that same day marked the fifth provincial capital to fall into Taliban hands.
Panjshiri forces in Warsaj
Late on 8 August, government forces retreating from Taloqan recaptured Warsaj and Farkhar from the Taliban. However, on 9 August, the Taliban captured Samangan Province's capital of Samangan (Aibak), making it the sixth provincial capital to fall to the Taliban in just four days. The ANA concurrently announced a counter-offensive to retake Kunduz, and heavy fighting was reported elsewhere in the north as droves of Afghan civilians fled towards Kabul. On 10 August 2021, the Taliban captured Farah Province's provincial capital of Farah after briefly fighting with government forces, marking the seventh provincial capital to fall in five days. At the same time, President Ghani called on local militias to resist the Taliban, leading to the Taliban tightening its grip in the cities and districts it held in the north. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said that the United States would be willing to continue its airstrike campaign against the Taliban, but that it was up to the Afghan government to defend themselves, as it was ultimately Afghanistan's fight. By the end of the day, fighting had intensified around Mazar-i-Sharif, and Baghlan Province's capital of Pol-e Khumri fell to the Taliban that same day, marking the eighth provincial capital to fall to the Taliban.
Taliban fighters arriving in Fayzabad
On 11 August, the Taliban captured a ninth provincial capital, Fayzabad, the capital of Badakhshan Province and the former center of the Northern Alliance before the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. At the same time, the Taliban captured the Kunduz Airport after hundreds of Afghan troops surrendered themselves and all of their military equipment. President Ghani once again appealed to the warlords to fight back against the Taliban, but, on that same day, US intelligence officials predicted that Kabul could fall within a matter of months if the Taliban advance was not stopped. At the same time, the top military leadership of the ANA was reshuffled, with General Haibatullah Alizai replacing Wali Ahmadzai as the new chief of staff of the army, and Sami Sadat - who had led the defense of Helmand - was named commander of the special operations corps.
Taliban fighters posing in Ghazni
On 12 August, the Taliban captured its tenth provincial capital within a week, occupying Ghazni after heavy fighting which caused Governor Dawood Laghmani to flee the city; the Afghan government responded by having Laghmani and a colleague arrested for abandoning the city. As Ghazni lay just 93 miles from Kabul and along the major highway to Kandahar, the fall of Ghazni to the Taliban put the jihadist group on the "main road" to Kabul. Later in the day, the Taliban entered Afghanistan's second-largest city, Kandahar, after fierce fighting, and also took over the police headquarters in the country's third-largest city, Herat. Increasingly desperate for a peaceful solution, the Afghan government secretly offered the Taliban a power-sharing deal in exchange for a halt in the escalating violence in the country, although, a day before, Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan said that the Taliban refused to negotiate with the government as long as Ghani was President, and that his own attempts to convince the Taliban to change their stance were unsuccessful. Qala-e Naw and the rest of Kandahar and Herat fell that same day, marking thirteen provincial capitals to have fallen into the Taliban's hands in a week. In response, the United States sent troops to Hamid Karzai International Airport to help evacuate US embassy staff, and Britain deployed 600 troops to Afghanistan to evacuate the 4,000 UK nationals still in the country.
The Taliban freeing Ismail Khan and the other officials
On 13 August 2021, the provincial capitals of Lashkar Gah, Chaghcharan, Puli Alam, Qalat, and Tarinkot also fell to the Taliban, marking the fall of 18 provincial capitals in 8 days. At the same time, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid reported the capture of the warlord Ismail Khan following Herat's fall a day earlier, and Khan was pictured in Taliban captivity. The Taliban agreed not to harm the government officials who had surrendered, but Herat became a ghost town due to the heavy fighting and the Taliban takeover. However, at 1:03 PM EST, the Taliban were confirmed to have released Khan and other government officials in exchange for his promise to work with them, in an apparent bid by the Taliban to win the support of the Tajik people.
Ghani preparing the defense of Kabul
On 14 August, the Taliban captured seven more provincial capitals: Gardez, Sharana, Asadabad, Maymana, Mihtarlam, Nili, and Mazar-i-Sharif (Afghanistan's fourth-largest city). The Mazar-based anti-Taliban warlords Abdul Rashid Dostum and Atta Muhammad Nur went into exile in Uzbekistan as the Taliban captured Dostum's Mazar-i-Sharif palace. At the same time, videos emerged of Taliban pilots flying captured Mi-17 helicopters over Kandahar, having also captured several American "Black Hawk" helicopters. As the Taliban encircled Kabul, President Ghani addressed the nation and said that he was in urgent talks with local leaders and international partners, while ignoring the Taliban's demands for him to resign. President Biden announced that he would send 5,000 US troops to Afghanistan to help evacuate diplomatic staff and personnel, and US diplomatic staff and Western nationals were airlifted out of Kabul that same day. By nightfall, the Afghan government was only in control of two of Afghanistan's major cities, Kabul and Jalalabad.
Taliban fighters waiting outside Kabul
Early on 15 August, Jalalabad fell to the Taliban without a fight, marking the 26th provincial capital to fall into insurgent hands, and the Taliban advanced within 7 miles of Kabul, which was effectively besieged. The ANA descended into chaos, and only the 201st Corps and 111th Division, both stationed in Kabul, remained active. Later in the day, the ANA handed over Bagram Airfield to the Taliban, and 5,000 Taliban prisoners were freed from its detention facility. President Ghani initially announced his intent to have a negotiations team headed by Hamid Karzai negotiate the formation of a transitional government with the Taliban, with the Taliban temporarily halting outside of the city amid talks. However, Ghani and Vice President Amrullah Saleh ultimately fled to Tajikistan, and the Taliban entered Kabul, seized the presidential palace, and stated that there would be no transitional government, as they expected a complete transfer of power from the Ghani government. Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands announced their intent to evacuate their embassies, while the US relocated its embassy to Kabul Airport, and Russia and Pakistan retained their embassies in Kabul. The fall of Kabul marked the demise of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the restoration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan by the Taliban, and the Taliban declared an end to the war after 20 years of fighting. On 16 August, the Taliban declared the Islamic Emirate's restoration, and, that same day, Panjshir peacefully surrendered to the Taliban.
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