After months of inactivity, US aviation reactivated in the skies of Afghanistan
By order of President Joe Biden on Saturday, August 7, for the first time this year, strategic bombers B-52H joined the strikes against the Taliban (banned in Russia).
The Pentagon has been trying to slow down the Taliban offensive with airstrikes for three weeks, but so far they have tried to cope with more modest means. At night, AC-130 Specter gunships, converted from transport aircraft, with powerful cannon and rocket armament, worked over the country. Not without attacks from the MQ-9 Reaper attack drones.
This was far from enough to stop the Taliban’s swift summer britskrieg. According to the Pentagon representatives, the group has already managed to capture half – in Russian terms, of the regional centers – of the country. As with us, these are usually small towns with a few or tens of thousands of inhabitants. The regional centers, the provincial capitals of Afghanistan, have remained impregnable for the movement for years. But in the first ten days of August, the Taliban took five of 34 such settlements. The battles are also going on for the iconic Lashkar Gakh, Herat and Kandahar.
The main prize that the Taliban managed to take despite the bombing was the strategic Kunduz near the border with Tajikistan. The city of more than 300 thousand people fell on Sunday after a short siege. The strikes of the B-52 and the defense of Sar-e-Bullet and Talukan did not help.
US strategic bombers were forced to switch from attacking clusters of militants and their equipment to destroying the Taliban-occupied bases of government troops and military equipment thrown at them, which had only recently been transferred to the government of the country.
Even after activation, US aircraft make only up to a dozen strike sorties a day. Such modest forces involved show that the United States does not really want to get seriously involved in the fighting and help the Afghan government. The purpose of the current bombing is only to buy time and safely withdraw the last 650 US troops before August 31st. Suffice it to compare the efforts made by the Pentagon now and those at the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom.
Her sad anniversary awaits us soon. Twenty years ago, on October 7, 2001, the first US and Allied airstrikes were launched in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The first wave of air attacks was attended by one and a half dozen heavy bombers B-1 and B-52, dozens of carrier-based fighters from aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea, and a pair of “invisible” B-2s. Cruisers, destroyers and submarines from the Pentagon and Great Britain fired 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles. Over the next two weeks, aircraft continued to iron Taliban targets, performing an average of 63 strike missions per day.
In subsequent years, the power of the US and Allied aviation in cooperation with ground contingents from 30 countries made it possible to clear the main part of the territory from radicals, but not completely exterminate them. The air war never died down to the end. Even in relatively quiet years, attack planes and drones attacked targets of the Taliban and other radical Islamist groups throughout Afghanistan from one hundred to five hundred times a month.
Now, in the event of a catastrophe on the fronts, even the current modest assistance is not guaranteed to the Kabul government. Just two months ago, General Frank Mackenzie, head of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), said the Pentagon had no plans to support Afghan forces with airstrikes after the US withdrawal from the country was completed. He promised only pinpoint operations against terrorists plotting to harm the United States. It is not a fact that the latest successes of the Islamists will force a reconsideration of this decision.
Although formally in service with the Afghan Air Force, there are also almost one and a half hundred military aircraft and helicopters, most of them are transport. Two dozen light attack aircraft A-29 Super Tucano and a dozen armed Cessna 208s can hardly replace all the power of the allied aviation. Their helplessness was demonstrated in June and July.
In recent weeks, the country’s Air Force has faced a new threat. The Taliban* began hunting down government aircraft and helicopter pilots, killing eight military personnel. They are shot in houses and on the streets, bombs are placed in cars. Even the capital, Kabul, cannot be considered a safe place.
With the withdrawal of US troops and civilian contractors, maintaining the Afghan fleet could become an intractable problem. Already, local technicians are being trained to repair helicopters through Zoom teleconferences. You cannot prepare pilots as well as hand over spare parts for equipment. By the end of the year, the number of combat-ready vehicles may plummet.
Air support from the United States and its own weak air force was one of the few trump cards that gave the national army an advantage in the battles with the Taliban. Losing it would have a detrimental effect on the morale of the Afghan military.
Now the Afghan government is trying to counter the offensive with several thousand well-trained special forces and commandos, who are airlifting from one threatened area to another. But with the activation of the Taliban, they simply do not have time everywhere. Ordinary troops do not show enthusiasm and stamina in battle. Soldiers and officers leave their positions without serious resistance, and sometimes even go over to the side of the Islamists. Weak and scattered US airstrikes will not improve this situation in any way. But their final cessation will further undermine morale and could lead to the complete collapse of the army.
* the organization is banned in the Russian Federation
Anton Lavrov, Izvestia newspaper