Even the Taliban are in shock: my week on the Kabul front line

I’ve been to the front line in Iraq, Syria and Libya and witnessed all kinds of crazy, unlikely events. But I have never seen anything like what’s happening in Kabul. Only two weeks ago, I was reporting for CNN in the city of Kandahar. It was clear that this provincial capital would not be the last to fall. Then on Sunday morning, we heard that the Taliban were at the gates of Kabul itself. In the afternoon, we heard that they had entered the city. By the evening, Taliban fighters were manning checkpoints on every street corner, wielding guns but not using them. How on earth did they take a capital city of six million in a matter of hours while hardly firing a shot? The Afghan army was never a coherent force in the way that the Taliban is. I saw this for myself a few days ago on my way to Taliban territory in Ghazni. Afghan soldiers ran out of their checkpoint, hailed down a civilian car, jumped in and drove off, abandoning their post. When I returned the next day, new soldiers were manning the checkpoint, but they were dressed in civilian clothing. The Afghan army didn’t have either the kit or the appetite for a real fight.

It wasn’t just Joe Biden who was astonished by the Taliban’s rapid success. I’ve spoken to Taliban fighters who say that even they have been amazed. When I reported on CNN last week that US security officials thought Kabul might be surrounded in 30 days, I thought this was a vast exaggeration. I don’t know anyone who didn’t think the same. So yes, we absolutely should ask how US security services got this so wrong.