The Afghan Ministry of Defense confirmed Fox News that the Taliban fighters shot twenty-two Afghan commandos in the northern province of Faryab on Tuesday. The ammunition of the Special Forces members ran out as they fought with Taliban terrorists, which leads them to surrender. Furthermore, the militants told them to remove their bulletproof vests amid the surrender and then shot the twenty-two troops, including the son of a top Afghan general, the ministry added.
Brutal Taliban Massacre: Taliban executes 22 Afghan Commandoes after asking them to surrender in Afghanistan. This is just a glimpse of how Taliban is going to operate in the coming weeks and months. Disturbing visuals. pic.twitter.com/UBAY5VLefV
— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) July 13, 2021
There is a supposedly unproven video of the incident circulating online. In a separate attack against an Afghan convoy, commandos driving in Humvees were making efforts to extract wounded police officers captured by Taliban troops when they were caught in explosions and gunfire. Moreover, the violence comes some days after John Kirby, the press secretary of Pentagon on 9th June, described the concerning advancement of Taliban in Afghanistan as the United States military withdraw troops out of the country after twenty years.
Taliban Took Control of 10% of Afghanistan – FDD
According to Reuters, governmental officials dismissed the claim of the Taliban that it took control of eighty-five percent of territory in Afghanistan at the time and said that it was part of a propaganda campaign. The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) forecasts that the American military completed over ninety percent of the pull-out process, according to the 6th July statistics of the command.
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal describes the current security situation in Afghanistan as instantly worsening, noting that in the last six days ending 5th June, the Taliban fighters took control of approximately ten percent of the whole country. Overall, the Taliban controls around one hundred and ninety-five Afghan districts of a total of 407 and contests another one hundred and twenty-nine as of 5th July compared to its control of just seventy-three and contest of two hundred and ten on 1st May, according to the real-time assessment of FDD.
Taliban Shoot Them All
CNN interviewed many witnesses in Dawlat Abad, and according to them, the commandos were shot in cold blood. One witness said that the Afghan commandos arrived in the town with many tanks, but unfortunately, they ran out of ammunition after around two hours of fighting and received no support from the air force. Taliban surrounded the commandos and brought them into the street middle, and shot them all.
The witness also suggested that some Taliban terrorists were not from Afghanistan and they may be foreigners because he didn’t understand their conversation when they talked with each other. Another witness (a shopkeeper in the bazaar) also confirmed that the Taliban sounded foreign. Further, he said that commandos were not fighting, as they raised their hands and surrendered.
Source: Web
Local officials criticized the dispatch of special force commandos to the town with limited ammunition, no reinforcement, or air cover. A member of Faryab’s Provincial Council, Abdul Ahad Ailbek, said the force that reached there didn’t know the area nor which districts the Taliban controlled.
The Taliban Group Claims defections
Tens of thousands of civilians displaced across Afghanistan due to the surge in fighting followed Biden’s announcement that all American troops will leave the country by 11th September. Since then, the Taliban said Taliban claimed to took control of approximately two hundred districts across Afghanistan, mostly north-west and north. In several areas, the Taliban met slight resistance. The stamen further added that almost two hundred districts were cleansed from their nasty presence.
According to the statistics of the Long War Journal, which is tracking the territorial control in Afghanistan, 212 districts were under Taliban control as of 10th July, with seventy-six under the control of the Afghan government and 119 still contested. Now without United States air support, the Afghan special forces’ mission is even more challenging. The Red Cross confirmed that they collected over a dozen bodies of commandos from a part of Faryab province.
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