opinionWar

The Talibans Siege of Kunduz Highlights a Worrying New Dynamic

The Taliban seized the northern Afghan city of Kunduz on 28th September after five months of fighting. Even though the city was recaptured by Afghan and NATO troops days later, Kunduz became the first provincial capital to fall under Taliban control since 2001 and it is still under threat. Despite the scale of the setback, the news has largely been drowned-out internationally by controversy surrounding ongoing Russian airstrikes in Syria. Answers regarding how we should interpret this anomalous incident have consequently received minimal attention, with little beyond a factual narrative being offered by most news outlets.

The fall of Kunduz was worrying, no doubt, but my first reaction to the news was not one of concern, but of intense perplexity. Admittedly, like many Western analysts, I’d been remiss in my study of Afghanistan since Western troops began to depart the country a year or so ago and yet this development appeared to make no logical sense. Concentrating forces to assault Kunduz simply didn’t fit with the Taliban’s modus operandi as I understood it and didn’t appear to be a part of a coherent strategy.

The Taliban’s heartland is on the opposite side of Afghanistan in the south and east of the country where most fighting in recent years has taken place. There is no historic evidence of Kunduz being a hive of insurgency, with only about 1% of deaths sustained by NATO over the last 14 years having taken place in the Province. Additionally, the logistics that would have been involved in the Taliban transporting the necessary men, weaponry and