dpa, 14 March 2023
In this item by German Press Agency re-published in a number of German media about the former German government’s local Afghan employees stuck under the Taleban, AAN’s Thomas Ruttig is quoted as saying on the issue of whether it’s true, as often claimed, that the raid fall of Kabul, due to the Afghan armed forces just ging up, was not predictable (in German):
Afghanistan expert Thomas Ruttig also says that Kabul’s rapid fall was foreseeable. Because the common narrative that the Afghan army made the Taliban’s rapid triumph possible through a lack of will to fight is wrong. “Often there was dogged resistance for a long time,” says Ruttig. Rather, the advance of the militant Islamists had begun years earlier. From 2018, the situation for the West and its allies had gotten so bad that the US had stopped openly reporting how many areas were already in Taliban hands.
Revisions:
This article was last updated on 16 Mar 2023
