ngatimozart, have you ever met a soldier serving in the ANDSF, current or retired, who didn't believe that the Pakistani Army was at war with the ANDSF? Many 1, 2, 3 and four star generals in the ANA and AAF have said this in public, including the chief of the ANA joint chiefs. The GIRoA leaders have been screaming about this from the rooftops for some time. This year we saw by far the largest ever social media campaign by Afghans in history over this very issue . . . demanding immediate deep global sanctions on Pakistan. We also saw many hundreds of thousands of Afghans protest across Afghanistan in early August . . . supporting their beloved ANDSF and denouncing the Pakistani Army.
However, sadly Europeans, North Americans and Chinese often side with Pakistanis and Pakistani Army propoganda over Afghans. So I will only quote non Afghan sources:
- Ending Pakistan’s Proxy War in Afghanistan: Paper by Chris Alexander
- Chris Alexander has extensively documented the Pakistani Army role. And not just in the PDF referenced here. Chris Alexander is a hero among Afghans.
- Lt Gen McMaster--former National Security Advisor under President Trump--has extensively written and spoken about this. Including in over a dozen public source videos released in the past month that you can google search. Some of them very long. I have seen most of them. But here is a short one where he might discuss this. (I have seen so many of McMaster's videos I don't remember for sure what he said in any one of them.):
- There was recently a one hour interview between Tucker Carlson and Lara Logan that discussed this.
The Pakistani Army probably sent something like 20,000 embedded advisors with the Taliban. (sometimes the ANDSF discussed their advisor as "red teams.") They focused on attacking and tying down the ANA 215th, 205th, 203rd, 201st ANA Corps. These were the four best Corps in the ANA and were in logistically intense combat while the North and the West fell. The Pakistani Army extensively used the Spin Boldek border crossing, and threatened to shoot down any AAF aircraft than neared it. The AAF complied--having so few operational combat aircraft to begin with.
I think the Pakistani Army played a major role in the attack on Kunduz--which broke the 217th ANA Corps. Because what other than the Pakistani Army could inflict catastrophic losses on the 217th ANA Corps? Which then leaves the question of how the Pakistani Army logistically supported it.
However based on reporting from the ANA and others on the ground, I don't know of evidence that they played a significant role in the attacks on 209th ANA Corps (North), Herat (207th), Farah (207th), Nimroz (215th), Bagdhis (207th), Ghor (207th).
Although I wonder how local Taliban were able to inflict catastrophic casualties on the 207th ANA Corps in Farah. One possibility is that 207th ANA Corps in Farah completely ran out of fuel, ammunition, supplies, spare parts, and were denied close air support. This is what appears to have happened in Herat--which allowed the Taliban to kill and wound vast numbers of 207th ANA Corps soldiers. The US airforce denied close air support to 207th ANA Corps on the final day of fighting in Herat (based on what a soldier fighting in Herat wrote--he was killed by the Taliban hours later.) Could something similar have happened in Farah?
It appears that Khamenei's forces took out the ANA in Nimruz and Helmand. Maybe Farah, Ghor, Baghdis too? Not sure.