Taliban warns the United States to stop flying drones over Afghanistan...

Taliban fighters with a captured Humvee. The Hill/Getty.

The Taliban have warned the United States to stop flying drones over Afghanistan. The Hill. The Taliban claim that the Doha agreement they made with President Trump last year prevents the use of drones over Afghanistan. They are also saying that the drone flights violate international law. The United States withdrew from Afghanistan this August under extreme circumstances. The US government has said that they will launch strikes against ISIS and al-Qaeda without Taliban approval. 

My Comment:

Just a follow up to yesterday's post. It does seem clear now that the Taliban will try and stop operations against ISIS and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. What I wasn't expecting was how they were going to do so. It appears that the Taliban will be using political pressure against the United States instead. 

This will, of course, not work. The United States usually does whatever it wants and that tendency has increased under Joe Biden. They are not going to stop these flights and won't give the Taliban a heads up when a strike happens. It's clear that they will do what they want when they want in Afghanistan. 

I don't know that the Taliban has much other option though. I don't think they have much in the way of an anti-aircraft capability. They may have some ancient anti-air guns but I don't see them having much in the way of surface to air missiles that would be the main threat to our drones and planes. 

I do wonder if they might try and use their small fleet of captured A-29 Super Tucanos. Though the planes were obviously designed for an air to ground role, I bet they could be used to intercept lower flying drones. The problem is having trained pilots and I doubt the Taliban has too many of these. If they are lucky they had a few left over from the Afghan government that they recruited. Arming and maintaining these planes are a problem as well. Of course the problem with using these prop planes to try and shoot down drones is that they would be extremely vulnerable to US air power. 

I do have to say that it seems pretty clear that the war in Afghanistan is anything but over. The Pentagon is openly talking about how they are going to bomb targets when it is convenient to them. And now it's clear that there won't be any normal relations with the Taliban. I think it's only a matter of time before we end up launching airstrikes there again.