Taliban gains drive Afghan government to recruit militias

Taliban gains in northern Afghanistan have driven a worried government to resurrect militias with a track record of fomenting chaos and widespread killing

KOH DAMAN, Afghanistan -- For two days the fighting was blistering. Rockets and heavy machine gun fire pounded Imam Sahib, a key district on Afghanistan’s northern border with Tajikistan. When the explosions died down and Syed Akram finally emerged from his home earlier this week, three of his neighbor’s children had been killed, and a tank was burning on a nearby street corner. Several shops and a petrol station were still smoldering. In the streets, the Taliban were in control. There were maybe 300 of them, he said. That had been plenty to overwhelm the government troops defending the town, who had numbered fewer than 100. Akram saw several bodies of soldiers in the street, but many had fled the district center. In recent days, the Taliban have made quick gains in Afghanistan’s north, overrunning multiple districts, some of them reportedly with hardly a fight, even as the U.S. and NATO press forward with their final withdrawal from Afghanistan. By all accounts their departure will be complete long before the Sept. 11 deadline set by President Joe Biden when he announced in mid-April an end to America’s “forever war.”