The U.S. assesses that the capital of Afghanistan could fall to the Taliban within the next 90 days, two sources familiar with the matter confirmed to Fox News, just weeks before President Biden plans to completely withdraw U.S. troops from the region following nearly two decades of war.
The Taliban seized three more Afghan provincial capitals and a local army headquarters on Wednesday, attaining control of two-thirds of the nation. The sources said that the intelligence regarding Kabul’s security has been dire for some time.Pentagon officials told Fox News that the intelligence community updated its assessment of Afghanistan after the Taliban conquered nine provincial capitals in recent days.
A CIA assessment months ago said Kabul could fall in six months, however, officials say, at this point, that prediction has been cut in half.
But one U.S. official told Fox News that while Kabul could be “surrounded” in the next month, he expected a protracted civil war to break out and the capital not to fall to the Taliban for several months, saying that most of the 300,000 U.S.-backed Afghan forces will rally around the capital.
The Taliban’s spiritual home of Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, appears to be one of the next provincial capitals in danger of falling, and the the limited U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan by drones, B-52 bombers, and AC-130 gunships in recent days have been concentrated in Kandahar, in what officials call a last-ditch attempt to keep the city from falling to the Taliban.
