Taliban Seize Kandahar, Prepare to March on Afghan Capital Kabul

KABUL—The Taliban pressed their rapid advance across Afghanistan with the capture of Kandahar, the nation’s second-largest city and the Islamist movement’s birthplace, and next threatened Kabul, prompting the U.S. to send thousands of troops for a diplomatic evacuation.

After 20 years of war, much of what the U.S. sought to accomplish in Afghanistan crumbled in just one week. The insurgent movement controlled none of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals until it seized the remote city of Zaranj just a week earlier, Aug. 6.

During that advance, Afghan security forces, meant to number 350,000 men, often surrendered without a fight, with soldiers giving up American-bought weaponry and taking advantage of Taliban promises of amnesty. Politicians in the U.S.-backed government in Kabul continued to squabble, with some senior officials quietly slipping abroad, at a time when unity was required the most.

By Friday night, when the first American units began to arrive to secure the airport to evacuate the bulk of U.S. diplomatic personnel, the mood in Kabul was mostly of resignation that the nation’s capital, like so many provincial cities, would soon come under the Taliban’s sway, too.

“Kabul will fall sooner or later because the morale of security forces is so weak. The government doesn’t really support them,” said Staff. Sgt. Khaluddin, one of the Afghan soldiers defending Kabul. He was on leave in his hometown of Kunduz when it was overrun by insurgents this past week. He managed to escape with family members to Kabul on a moto-rickshaw and resumed service in his Kabul-based unit.