Afghan Air force under Taliban rule

Drone Strike, Taliban Style:
newlinesmag.com

The Drone Unit that Helped the Taliban Win the War

Newlines Magazine interviews the engineers-turned-assassins working the drone unit that enabled the Taliban to win the war in Afghanistan.
newlinesmag.com newlinesmag.com

the Taliban leadership knew that continuing to launch suicide attacks against Afghan forces risked angering the population. A more precise method of killing was needed, particularly in the north of the country where the insurgents had less support. To the man who would become the unit’s emir, drones seemed like the perfect answer. After talking through the idea with senior intelligence operatives, he started to assemble his team.

...excelled as a student in Kabul University’s faculty of engineering during the U.S. occupation... But he is also rarely seen without his laptop and two smartphones — a Huawei and a Samsung Galaxy S20. The squad leader’s team of 11 men is made in his image. Like him, several of them are from Wardak, southwest of Kabul. They are well educated, and a number of them worked for Western NGOs before joining the drone team... Its job was to harass and assassinate Afghan government officials in the north. In doing so, it was to report solely to senior members of the Taliban’s intelligence apparatus. No one else in the insurgency was to be given detailed information about the unit’s operations, including shadow governors and high-level military commanders.

...Then the company identified the right drone, it cost the Taliban approximately $60,000. They purchased it in China and smuggled the parts into Afghanistan via Pakistan....Next, the unit’s engineers set to work modifying the drone. The chemical tanks and hoses for carrying and spraying fertilizer and pesticides were removed and replaced with a makeshift plastic missile rack capable of holding four mortar rounds that could be fired via a computer-activated spring mechanism.

Taliban’s first major operation with the new drone came in the northern city of Kunduz on Nov. 1, 2020. At least four bodyguards of the provincial governor were killed in the strike... another potential operation in Kunduz, this time against U.S. troops, was called off after U.S. service members spotted the drone and relayed a complaint to the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, noting that it would violate the terms of the nationwide withdrawal agreement the Trump administration struck with the Taliban in February 2020. Taliban leaders ordered a halt to the operation

...The target was a regional-level official in the north of the country named Piram Qul....Around 11 a.m., the unit leader uttered a prayer and keyed the launch code into his computer. Seconds later the mission was over. Piram Qul was dead before he even realized he was under attack.
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The recent drone strike in Afghanistan has some resounding similarities with the described material, target profile and methodologies.
 
Kirby also confirmed that a group of Afghan pilots early on Wednesday morning were flown out of Tajikistan and are now in the United Arab Emirates.

The evacuees, who fled to nearby Tajikistan after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in August, are being processed for eventual admission to the United States.
Click to expand...
thehill.com

Pentagon: ‘Dozens’ of family members of US troops still in Afghanistan

The Pentagon confirmed that “dozens” of family members of American troops remain in Afghanistan nearly three months after the U.S. ended its military mission in the country.“We believe it…
thehill.com thehill.com
 
A pointless revelation that say's nothing of value.
 
We spend billions, they want us out. Don't worry they say we can defend ourselves
with out you. We are ready for you to get the heck out of our country. As soon as we do,
they pull an Iraq and run. Why did the equipment fall in disarray so quickly. Only they know
the full answer. This is what we get for helping someone that does not want our help.
 
I personally believe many have attempted to make a cohesive country over generations but it has remained a feudal collection of little kingdoms. With the pacification of the hill tribes, this Taliban iteration seems to be doing the same again. Whether they actually succeed remains to be seen but they, in a calculated series of strikes, removed the biggest of figureheads for resistance so far.
 
TomcatViP said:
The question is: was Afghanistan really a country? Probably something to ask to the Brits...
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Some cynics (e.g. me) would say that Afghanistan was never a "country" by the European definition.
Afghanistan - and the next dozen Third World nations: Somalia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, etc. - have never been unified nations. European colonizers divided and conquered by lumping together multiple different tribes, languages, religions, eco-systems, economies, etc. to make them easier to rule from afar. They appointed compliant minority tribes to rule everyone else.
While the ruling party/tribe/religion may have presented a legitimate-looking ruler and legitimate-looking capital city, that party never represented the best interests of all the different tribes.

In short, Afghanistan cannot be called a "failed nation" or "failed democracy" because it never was a functioning democracy.
 
riggerrob said:
TomcatViP said:
The question is: was Afghanistan really a country? Probably something to ask to the Brits...
Click to expand...

Some cynics (e.g. me) would say that Afghanistan was never a "country" by the European definition.
Afghanistan - and the next dozen Third World nations: Somalia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, etc. - have never been unified nations. European colonizers divided and conquered by lumping together multiple different tribes, languages, religions, eco-systems, economies, etc. to make them easier to rule from afar. They appointed compliant minority tribes to rule everyone else.
While the ruling party/tribe/religion may have presented a legitimate-looking ruler and legitimate-looking capital city, that party never represented the best interests of all the different tribes.

In short, Afghanistan cannot be called a "failed nation" or "failed democracy" because it never was a functioning democracy.
Click to expand...
Ethiopia is the only African country never to be colonised.
 
Aeroflight said:
riggerrob said:
TomcatViP said:
The question is: was Afghanistan really a country? Probably something to ask to the Brits...
Click to expand...

Some cynics (e.g. me) would say that Afghanistan was never a "country" by the European definition.
Afghanistan - and the next dozen Third World nations: Somalia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, etc. - have never been unified nations. European colonizers divided and conquered by lumping together multiple different tribes, languages, religions, eco-systems, economies, etc. to make them easier to rule from afar. They appointed compliant minority tribes to rule everyone else.
While the ruling party/tribe/religion may have presented a legitimate-looking ruler and legitimate-looking capital city, that party never represented the best interests of all the different tribes.

In short, Afghanistan cannot be called a "failed nation" or "failed democracy" because it never was a functioning democracy.
Click to expand...
Ethiopia is the only African country never to be colonised.
Click to expand...
I thought Italy gave it a good go?
 
Aeroflight said:
Ethiopia is the only African country never to be colonised.
Click to expand...
Especially if you don't count the post-DERG Muslim invasion as a colonization.
AFAIK, the original (Christian) inhabitants might disagree.
 
The UK had a certain amount of time controlling the country.
 
TomcatViP said:
The question is: was Afghanistan really a country? Probably something to ask to the Brits...
Click to expand...
One could probably pose that question for dozens of countries, many with far less stability over the years than Afghanistan. Arguably, Afghanistan has been a country since the 1880s when Abdur Rahman Khan was Emir of Afghanistan and the British established the Durand Line. Since then it has had mostly various forms of Monarchy control (of varying quality). Sadly, the last 40 odd yrs when it found itself at the centre of US-USSR 'games' which then led to the abomination of the Taliban and the like (including more external influences) hasn't been kind.It's hard to believe that this photo was taken in Afghanistan in the 1970s when one considers the current situation:

3537.jpg
 
From a couple of weeks back. Via the SNAFU blog:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Helicopters/comments/xbbq1g
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helicopters/comments/xbbq1g/a_taliban_uh60a_black_hawk_crashed_in_kabul/

EDIT: Via the comments thread;
www.reuters.com

Black Hawk helicopter crashes during Taliban training exercise, killing three

A Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a Taliban training exercise in Afghanistan's capital Kabul, killing three, the group's defence ministry said on Saturday.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com

EDIT2: Again via the comments;
level 1
KingBobIV
All-Time Top 500 Poster
+4·14 days ago

MIL MH-60S TH-57
Oh damn, someone on r/aviation posted a better video.
https://twitter.com/x/status/1568837940670767104
View: https://twitter.com/bsarwary/status/1568837940670767104

So, it definitely was a t/r malfunction. Maybe a tail hydraulic servo failure or something.
Click to expand...
 
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