Behind The Scene: Collapse of Afghanistan's military to Taliban insurgents

New Delhi: The Taliban have seized power in Afghanistan two weeks before the US was set to complete its troop withdrawal after a costly two-decade war. The insurgents stormed across the country, capturing all major cities in a matter of days, as Afghan security forces trained and equipped by the US and its allies melted away.

The Taliban, a militant group that ran the country in the late 1990s, have again taken control. The US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 ousted the insurgents from power, but they never left. After they blitzed across the country in recent days, the Western-backed government that has run the country for 20 years collapsed. Afghans, fearing for the future, are racing to the airport, one of the last routes out of the country.

They're worried that the country could descend into chaos or the Taliban could carry out revenge attacks against those who worked with the Americans or the government. Many also fear the Taliban will reimpose the harsh interpretation of Islamic law that they relied when they ran Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. Back then, women were barred from attending school or working outside the home. They had to wear the all-encompassing burqa and be accompanied by a male relative whenever they went outside. The Taliban banned music, cut off the hands of thieves and stoned adulterers.

The Taliban have sought to present themselves as a more moderate force in recent years and say they won't exact revenge, but many Afghans are sceptical of those promises.

A report from Afghanistan in 2020 attracted the attention of the whole world. As per the report published in a private French magazine at that time, soldiers in Afghanistan were not getting a proper three-time meal. It further claimed that soldiers stationed in Kandahar province, a stronghold of the Taliban for years, got only 5 chapatis and a little vegetable in a day. However, the budget to be spent on the health of soldiers was millions of dollars on paper.

Apart from food, Afghan soldiers were given worn-out shoes and old distressed uniforms, in which to which they used to cut severe cold. In September 2017, the commander of the Ghor province of Afghanistan, General Ziazideen, raised this issue and said that his soldiers were getting proper three-time meals since May 2017. But instead of giving the right amount of food to the soldiers, the government of Afghanistan got involved in its cover and the words of a commander like General Ziazideen were suppressed.

When journalists present in Afghanistan investigated the news of the soldiers not getting proper food in Afghanistan, it was found that local contractors used to get food contracts on the basis of bribes or intimidation of army commanders. Contractors used to earn a lot of profit by giving low-quality and small portions of food to soldiers and divide the profit earned with the Army commanders.

Nexus between army commanders and corrupt contractors was nothing new in Afghanistan. General Mohammad Naeem Ghayor, the military intelligence chief of western Afghanistan, was arrested and detained by the Afghan government in 2011 over an interview on corruption in the Afghan army.

According to a report by the US Congress, in 2018, Afghanistan lost 10 per cent of its soldiers either due to accidents or those who left the job and ran away. The report also claimed that there were thousands of 'ghost soldiers' in Afghanistan who were only on paper, so to allot a huge sum on the budget of defence. 

In a situation where Afghan forces were not even provided proper meals by their commanders, one should not be surprised at their surrender to Taliban insurgents.

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