Kabul, Afghanistan. While the US supposedly has ISIS all but defeated in Syria and Iraq, it does not take a Rommel or Rokossovsky to see why Trump wants 50,000 fresh faces from America to fight in Afghanistan, as we see ISIS is winning in Afghanistan against America’s static occupation forces.
“ISIS has captured Tora Bora and areas around it,” Narwit Radlhawa reports. “The tribal elders are here in my office. They all escaped the area last night.” Another official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media and should not be doing this.
The Tora Bora, or mountain redoubt that was once Osama bin Laden’s fortress, fell to the Islamic State forces early Wednesday, handing the extremists a significant strategic and symbolic victory, according to Afghan officials.
Afghani Taliban fighters who had previously controlled the extensive cave and tunnel complex fled overnight after a determined, weeklong assault by ISIS, according to villagers fleeing the area on Wednesday.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Taliban in that area, denied that Tora Bora had fallen to their rival insurgents. “Fighting is underway in the Tora Bora area between ISIS and our mujahedeen,” Mr. Mujahid said via the Viber messaging service. Mujahid accused the United States of carrying out airstrikes in support of ISIS, but local officials and residents denied hearing any.
Hazmat Ali, a member of Parliament and a prominent warlord from the area who helped the Americans capture Tora Bora from al-Qaida in 2001, said that the offensive was prompted by the American decision to drop the mother of all bombs on an ISIS network of tunnels in Achin district in April. The 20,000-pound bomb was thought to be the largest non-nuclear bomb ever deployed.
Forces from ISIS then decided to shift its refuge to the Tora Bora caves and tunnels, Mr. Ali said. “Some 1,000 ISIS militants were gathered close to Tora Bora, to capture the area,” Mr. Ali said. “I informed government forces to target them, and I told them they are trying to capture Tora Bora, but they did not pay attention.”