Afghanistan will collapse within next 30-90 days, Biden says he ‘does not regret troop withdrawal’
U.S. Intelligence has assessed that Kabul will fall sooner than expected as Taliban control is growing faster than expectation.
The Biden administration is preparing for Afghanistan’s capital to fall far sooner than feared only weeks ago, as a rapid disintegration of security has prompted the revision of an already stark intelligence assessment predicting Kabul could be overrun within six to 12 months of the U.S. military departing, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
One official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the issue’s sensitivity, said Tuesday that the U.S. military now assesses a collapse could occur within 90 days. Others said it could happen within a month. Some officials said that although they were not authorized to discuss the assessment, they see the situation in Afghanistan as more dire than it was in June, when intelligence officials assessed a fall could come as soon as six months after the withdrawal of the U.S. military.
“Everything is moving in the wrong direction,” said one person familiar with the military’s new intelligence assessment.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden said the US was keeping the commitments it had made to Afghanistan, such as providing close air support, paying military salaries and supplying Afghan forces with food and equipment.
But he said: “They’ve got to fight for themselves.”
“Look,” Biden told reporters at the White House, “we spent over a trillion dollars over 20 years. We trained and equipped, with modern equipment, over 300,000 Afghan forces. And Afghan leaders have to come together.”
More than 1,000 civilians have been killed amid fierce fighting between the Taliban and government forces in the past month, according to the UN. Its children’s agency Unicef warned this week that atrocities being committed against children were growing “higher by the day”.
In their latest major advances, Taliban militants seized three more provincial capitals in 24 hours – Faizabad, Farah and Pul-e-Khumri.
