After moving forward with its exit from Afghanistan, the United States argued that the Taliban have a “strategic impetus” in their advance on the territory.

The Taliban seem to have the “strategic momentum” of their large-scale offensives in Afghanistan, but his victory is not even close to being assured, US Joint Chief of Staff Gen. Marc Milley.

Almost 20 years after the United States overthrew the Taliban after the September 11 attacks and with the recent withdrawal of foreign forces, terrorists now control about half of the approximately 400 Afghan districts. However, the US military has explained that it does not control any of the major cities in the country.

As activists lobby around half of the country’s provincial capitals, Afghan troops are “consolidating their forces” to protect these large urban centers, he added: “They are taking an approach to protect the population, and the majority of the population lives in the provincial capitals and in the capital, Kabul.”

“An automatic military takeover by the Taliban not a predictable conclusion“He added.

The Taliban advance through Afghanistan, seize territory, take border posts and surround towns. Its success has tested the morale of the Afghan army, already rocked by years of shocking losses and, more recently, by the decision of international troops led by the United States to leave.

Although the Afghan army has been trained by international forces and estimates show it far exceeds the ranks of the Taliban, Milley said numbers aren’t enough to win a war.

“The two most important combat multipliers are the Will and the leadership. And this is going to be a test of the will and leadership of the Afghan people, the Afghan security forces and the Afghan government, ”he explained.

The president of the United States, Joe biden, he also warned that a takeover by the Taliban “is not inevitable”. Earlier this month, he reported that The Afghans must unite against the insurgents and admitted that it was “highly unlikely” that a unified government would end up controlling the entire country.

Milley’s comments came hours after the Taliban said on Wednesday they would only fight in self-defense during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, but they did not declare a formal ceasefire.

In recent years, terrorists declare a break in fighting with government forces during Islamic holidays, offering Afghans a brief respite they can use to visit their families in relative safety.

The leader of the Taliban, Hibatullah Akhundzada, said at the weekend that he was “strongly in favor” of a political agreement to end the war with the government in Kabul. However, the push by the extremist movement to seize the final stages of the international withdrawal has left many Afghans skeptical.

President Achraf Ghani said on Tuesday that the Taliban had shown “To have neither will nor intention for peace”, and that the negotiations between the two opposing parties had hardly succeeded.

More than a dozen diplomatic missions in Kabul this week called for an “urgent end” to the current Taliban offensive, saying this contradicts claims that they want to reach a political agreement to end the conflict.

Afghan civilians, who have borne the brunt of the fighting since 2001, they are also watching the advance of the Taliban with fear.

Many of them, especially women and minorities, are at risk of lose the rights and freedoms that have cost them so much to achieve if the militants regain some sort of power.

Even though Kabul can contain them, Among the scenarios that civilians face is the prospect of a protracted and bloody civil war and the possibility that the country will divide along ethnic lines.

It was the chaos of the civil war in the 1990s that helped bring the Taliban to power. Milley said the possibility of a negotiated political settlement “is still there”: “There is the possibility that the Taliban will take power completely or the possibility of any other scenario: ruptures, warlords, all kinds of scenarios there.”

“We are watching very closely. I don’t think the end of the game is written yet, ”he concluded.

(With information from AFP)

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