Things degenerating back to a warlord driven civil war - with air support…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/u...iban-pmf3j7wqq
US sends gunships and bombers to beat back Taliban
American B-52 bombers and Spectre gunships bristling with cannon have been sent into action against the Taliban in an attempt to stop the insurgents’ march on three key cities in Afghanistan….
Aircraft used by the Afghans, many of which were supplied by the US, are running out of spares, munitions and pilots. At least seven pilots have been targeted and killed by the Taliban and the rest are reported to be exhausted by the relentless bombing and troop-carrying missions.
The air force is also suffering a repair backlog because of the withdrawal of thousands of American contractors. More than a third of the force’s 162 aircraft and helicopters are inoperable.
In response, US defence sources told
The Times that B-52s, a stalwart of US air power for 70 years that can each carry up to 32 tonnes of bombs, were flying from al-Udeid airbase in Qatar over southwest Pakistan and into Afghanistan to hit Taliban targets around
Lashkar Gah in Helmand province,
Kandahar and Herat.
The two other main US aircraft being used are AC-130 Spectre gunships, a heavily armed ground-attack version of a transport aircraft designed for low-altitude, close-air, cannon-firing support, and armed Reaper drones. Both aircraft are also based in Qatar, 1,000 miles away. At least five missions are being flown a day, the defence sources said.
The USS Ronald Reagan, an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea, is also contributing its F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets to the missions….
Added to the growing expense of the post-withdrawal period will be the challenge of keeping the Afghan air force flying and combat-ready after the last of the 16,000 US contractors have left Afghanistan.
Captain Bill Urban, spokesman for US Central Command, which is in charge of the “over-the-horizon” operations in Afghanistan, said the maintenance of Afghan aircraft was being carried out in three ways. First, by the few hundred contractors still present in Afghanistan; second, by “virtual assistance” involving Zoom calls from the Gulf to Afghan mechanics; and third, by flying out aircraft to be checked “in a third country”, the location of which is secret.
Several aircraft have already been flown out by Afghan pilots, and flown back to rejoin the strike missions.
There is concern, however, that none of the US contractors will be in Kabul after August 31 as they are reluctant to stay without American back-up. If they were to stay longer, Urban said, it would also require a change of policy in Washington……
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a...iban-zkhv7tts5
Afghan warlords rejoin the fight to defeat the Taliban
…Scores of districts throughout Afghanistan have been overrun by the Islamists as government forces buckle. More than a dozen cities are under siege, with bitter fighting on the outskirts of provincial capitals to the north, south and west. One of them, Zarranj, fell yesterday.
In an attempt to stave off total collapse, President Ghani has turned to the warlords and their militias. Local fighters who register with the government are paid a salary and supplied with weapons to defend their homes against the Taliban.
The move has drawn some infamous characters back to the fray, with ominous echoes of the Afghan civil war of the 1990s that spawned the Taliban.
Many of the warlords who emerged after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 also have brutal reputations and their return has raised fears that Afghanistan could once again implode as local powerbrokers vie for dominance…..
Khan was a former comrade of many Taliban commanders in the mujahideen that fought the Soviet Union during the 1980s. He gained notoriety for supporting US forces as the Taliban were routed in 2001. Now aged 75, he has made a point of appearing on the battlefield with his men as the battle for Herat has raged from street to street.….
Another notorious warlord from the civil war era, Abdul Rashid Dostum, also announced his return to Afghanistan to join the battle against the Taliban this week.
While the politicians manoeuvre, however, many on the front lines in Afghanistan’s war-torn cities are fighting for survival. Word of Taliban atrocities has spread throughout the country as tens of thousands flee the Islamist advance…..