Taliban take the Afghan border with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - In Brief 11 Aug 2021 by Alex Teddy
On August 10 Moscow announced that the Taliban now control the frontier. 2,500 Russian troops are concluding an exercise with the Tajik and Uzbek armies. The explicit aim of the exercise was to prepare for counter terrorist operations. Man-portable air defense systems were deployed in the drill. Moscow said that its troops were trying the same tactics they had successfully used in Syria. The Russian Defense Ministry has been very keen to inform the media about the drill. This is to serve as a warning to the Taliban.In recent days the Taliban advance has sped up in the rest of Afghanistan. A leaked US government report forecast that the Taliban might control all of Afghanistan by March 2022. There are almost no US troops left there. The last are due to depart by September 11, 2021.Central Asian states are very perturbed by the Taliban's advance. Russia is also worried about this. The upside of this for Moscow is that the situation will deepen Central Asian dependency on Moscow. There are ethnic Uzbeks and ethnic Tajiks who are Afghan citizens. A few people have even left Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to join the Taliban. The governments of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan denounce their opponents as Islamic extremists even when this is manifestly absurd. The Taliban has agreed not to cross the border into the former Soviet states. Russia and the Central Asian states are willing to tolerate the Taliban so long as the Taliban honors this promise. Russia and the Central Asian states are offering non-interference in Afghanistan in return. Previously they had supported the anti-Taliban forces, which proved to be backing the wrong horse.

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