Today's D Brief: Taliban march on; China's stealth jets; Space Force eyeing CENTCOM; USAF's new pocket policy; And a bit more.
By Ben Watson, Caitlin M. Kenney and Jennifer Hlad
August 12, 2021
The D Brief
The Taliban now control more than two-thirds of Afghanistan. That number came from a European officials' assessment shared with the Associated Press on Tuesday—and that was before the 10th provincial capital fell to the group today in southeastern Ghazni City.
Why this one could really hurt: “The loss of Ghazni—which sits along the Kabul-Kandahar Highway that connects the Afghan capital to the southern provinces—could complicate resupply and movement for government forces, as well as squeeze the capital from the south,” AP reports today. (And if any of our readers are familiar with how quickly Afghan forces can burn through ammunition, you know how vital resupply is.)
The Taliban also recently picked up an Afghan Army HQs and a few airports in the north, Bill Roggio reported for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal on Wednesday. “The loss of the headquarters and the airports in Kunduz City and Shibirghan [in Jowzjan province] will deny the [Afghan] military the ability to launch counterattacks in the two provinces and relieve the siege of the key city of Mazar-I-Sharif in nearby Balkh province,” Roggio writes. “The Taliban controls the roads leading to these two cities, and the only way for the Afghan military to retake them is by reinforcing the units based at the airports via air.”
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2021/08/the-d-brief-august-12-2021/184479/
