Everyone "Got It Wrong" On Taliban's Lightning Takeover Of Afghanistan: British Army Chief

"It was the pace of it that surprised us and I don't think we realised quite what the Taliban were up to," Britain's chief of the defence staff, General Nick Carter told the BBC.

The world "got it wrong" on how quickly the Taliban would take over Afghanistan, the head of the British army said on Sunday, days after the UK government acknowledged that intelligence suggested that "it was unlikely Kabul would fall this year" after Western troops withdrew from the war-torn country. The US and other countries were caught off-guard by the Taliban's lightning conquest of Afghanistan last month and the strikingly rapid fall of the Afghan military and government backed by the West once NATO troops left the country. "It was the pace of it that surprised us and I don't think we realised quite what the Taliban were up to," Britain's chief of the defence staff, General Nick Carter told the BBC. Asked whether military intelligence was wrong, he said the government received intelligence from a variety of sources.