The Pentagon is sending thousands of fresh troops to Afghanistan to help evacuate diplomats from the suddenly vulnerable U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Biden administration officials said Thursday as Taliban fighters captured two of the country’s three largest cities and moved to within about 80 miles of the capital.
The dramatic move underscores growing concern that the insurgent Taliban could mount an assault on Kabul within weeks, directly threatening the safety of U.S. diplomats stationed there. The stunning speed of the Taliban blitz has left the White House and Pentagon scrambling to develop plans for such a nightmare scenario.
The key cities of Kandahar and Herat became the latest provincial capitals to fall under the radical Islamist insurgency’s control. Troops in charge of defending the U.S.-backed government in Kabul showed little ability or will to hold off their advances. Kandahar and Herat are the second- and third-largest cities in the country, respectively.
The provincial capital of Ghazni fell earlier in the day. The Taliban now control at least 12 of the nation’s 34 provinces. Other major cities are also at serious risk and expected to fall within days.
Against that grim backdrop, Pentagon and State Department officials said their immediate priority is to get most American diplomats out of Kabul as quickly as possible. The plan will temporarily upend President Biden’s long-standing goal of a full military withdrawal from Afghanistan by Sept. 11. But inside the administration, it is viewed as a necessary preemptive step to prevent a Vietnam-type scene in which U.S. personnel are frantically airlifted out of the capital while enemy fighters descend on the embassy complex.
Britain and other nations were announcing similar rescue operations for their personnel in the country, adding to the fear that the government of President Ashraf Ghani was on the verge of collapse.
SEE ALSO: Taliban sweep across Afghanistan’s south, take 4 more cities
Pentagon officials said reinforcements of as many as 4,000 American troops will arrive almost immediately and, if necessary, will not hesitate to engage Taliban fighters, who could be on the outskirts of Kabul within days.
“These forces are being deployed to support the orderly and safe reduction of civilian personnel” from Afghanistan, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said. “This is a temporary mission with a narrow focus.
“Any attack on them can and will be met with a forceful and an appropriate response,” he said.
At the State Department, officials said the U.S. will cut its diplomatic footprint as much as possible even as officials insisted they were not abandoning the Ghani government and ending support for the Afghan people. The embassy issued another warning urging Americans to leave Afghanistan immediately.
“This is not the wholesale withdrawal. What this is, is a reduction in the size of our civilian footprint,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters. “This is a drawdown of civilian Americans who will, in many cases, be able to perform their important function elsewhere, whether that’s in the United States or elsewhere in the region.”
Mr. Price did not offer a specific number of diplomats who might remain at the embassy, but it’s believed to be few. The U.S. also reportedly is considering a plan to move remaining embassy staffers to the Kabul airport, where emergency evacuations could be conducted much faster and where the security situation likely will be more stable, at least in the short term.
SEE ALSO: ‘Not acceptable’: Trump slams Biden’s handling of U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan
The developments will offer even more ammunition for critics who say Mr. Biden has badly bungled the withdrawal from Afghanistan and has opened the door to a full Taliban takeover and a likely resurgence of al Qaeda.
Former President Donald Trump, who signed off on a February 2020 deal with the Taliban that paved the way for the U.S. military exit after two decades of war, said Thursday that Mr. Biden’s management of the pullout has been disastrous.
“Had our 2020 presidential election not been rigged, and if I were now president, the world would find that our withdrawal from Afghanistan would be a conditions-based withdrawal,” Mr. Trump said in a statement. “I personally had discussions with top Taliban leaders whereby they understood what they are doing now would not have been acceptable.
“It would have been a much different and much more successful withdrawal, and the Taliban understood that better than anyone,” he said. “What is going on now is not acceptable. It should have been done much better.”
Contingency plans
The first round of about 3,000 U.S. troops was to arrive in Kabul within 48 hours, Mr. Kirby said. Britain announced it would send about 600 troops.
The American deployment will consist of two Marine infantry battalions and one Army battalion. Those forces will be under the command of Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, a Navy SEAL who was recently chosen to command all U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
The 3,000 troops will join about 650 American personnel already in Kabul to guard the U.S. Embassy and to protect the city’s airport.
Within several days, Mr. Kirby said, another 1,000 troops will be dispatched to Afghanistan to expedite the evacuation of Afghans who worked with the U.S. as interpreters and in other key roles since the American invasion in October 2001.
The administration has struggled to find a workable plan to save them. The Taliban have targeted many for retribution for working with Western forces. A small number who are eligible for the U.S. Special Immigrant Visa program have been brought to American shores, but many thousands more are waiting in Afghanistan.
It’s not clear where they will go, Mr. Kirby said. The Defense Department will look at locations overseas and U.S. bases at home, he said, and military aircraft are likely to be used to move them out of harm’s way.
An Army infantry brigade will soon fly to Kuwait and will be on standby should the security situation at the Kabul airport deteriorate further, Mr. Kirby said.
Meanwhile, the Taliban’s lightning blitz has sparked chaos across the country. Pakistani forces reportedly clashed Thursday with a group of Afghan protesters stranded on the Pakistani side of a key border crossing that Taliban fighters had shut down.
During its offensive, the Taliban has routinely taken control of prisons and released inmates, causing even more chaos and sparking lawlessness in some parts of the country. Vehicles and weaponry, much of it supplied by the U.S. to Afghan security forces, have been turned over to the Taliban, often without a single shot being fired.
The United Nations estimated that more than 10,000 Afghans have fled to Kabul, potentially setting the stage for a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions when fighting reaches the capital.
There are also signs that the fragile U.S.-backed Afghan government is fraying. The country’s acting finance minister, Khalid Payenda, resigned this week. On Thursday, Ghazni Governor Dawood Laghmani and a colleague were reportedly arrested by Afghan security after they struck a secret deal to give the Taliban control of Ghazni in exchange for their safe passage to Kabul.
Al-Jazeera reported Thursday that the Afghan government presented a power-sharing plan to the Taliban in what seems to be an acknowledgment that an insurgent takeover is all but inevitable.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.