Today's D Brief: Kabul's grim future; Plot twist for Boko Haram; Space debris tracker; And a bit more.
By Ben Watson
August 13, 2021 11:23 AM ET
The D Brief
Panic is setting in 18 days from the United States military’s Afghanistan withdrawal deadline. The U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom are rushing nearly 5,000 troops back to Kabul to safeguard the departure of allied civilians as the Taliban march closer and closer to the capital city.
America is sending three infantry battalions—about 3,000 troops—to Kabul; another 3,500 infantry are headed to Kuwait as a contingency force;
The Brits are sending about 600 troops to help its citizens leave, of which about 4,000 remain in Afghanistan, the BBC reports;
And Canada is sending a small element of special forces to help evacuate and close its embassy, the Associated Press reported from Toronto; Germany and Denmark are also urging citizens to leave or are already evacuating them.
The latest on the Taliban: The group is believed to now control 18 provincial capitals, and its fighters are riding an 8-day blitz that began in the west and has since tightened around Kabul from the north, east, and south. Ghazni province fell Thursday, as did Helmand, Uruzgan, and Ghor; Herat and Kandahar—the country’s second- and third-largest cities—fell later. Logar province appears to be next, AP reports. (FDD’s Bill Roggio is also keeping tabs on the collapse, so follow him on Twitter if you’re not already.)
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2021/08/the-d-brief-august-13-2021/184506/
