Turkmenistan sending heavy weaponry, aircraft to Afghan border amid deteriorating security

RFE/RL
Sun, 11 Jul 2021 12:55 UTC

© Azathabar.com • RFE/RL

Turkmen reservists summoned to military recruiting posts

Turkmenistan has begun moving heavy weaponry, helicopters, and other aircraft closer to its border with Afghanistan, and reservists are being put on alert in the capital, a further sign of the worry spreading across Central Asia as Taliban fighters continue major offensives.

A senior official at a Turkmen security agency told RFE/RL that more troops from an army garrison near the city of Mary are being sent to bolster border guard units. Mary is about 400 kilometers north of Serhetabad, a major border crossing with Afghanistan.

The official, who was not authorized to speak to the media, said additional forces sent to the border include officers as well as fighter jets and helicopters. It is unclear exactly how many units are being sent to the border or the numbers of aircraft being dispatched there. Another online news site, Turkmen.News, also reported heavy weaponry being moved to the Serhetabad region last week.

In the capital, Ashgabat, meanwhile, some reservists are being summoned to military recruiting posts and being told to stay on alert for possible quick deployment, the official said. The orders are so far not nationwide and are limited to just Ashgabat, he said.

The Turkmen government, which is tightly controlled and highly secretive, has made no announcement about increased security. Law enforcement officials, meanwhile, have increased warnings to average Turkmen against using virtual private networks, or VPNs, which are illegal but widely used to circumvent government restrictions on the Internet.

In Mary, whose population is believed to be around 100,000 people, local officials have begun organizing patriotic lectures for public service employees.
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Turkmenistan shares an 800-kilometer border with Afghanistan, where the security situation has deteriorated sharply as Taliban fighters advance on provincial centers and even some border crossings. Hundreds of Afghans, including soldiers and local police, have reportedly fled into other neighboring Central Asia countries, like Tajikistan.

Tajik officials last week announced they were sending an additional 20,000 troops to its border in response to the Taliban offensive. On July 5, the border guard service reported that more than 1,000 Afghan troops had crossed into Tajikistan over the previous 24 hours.

U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged that the withdrawal of U.S. forces would be completed by August 31. Since then, the Taliban has unleashed a quick offensive and now controls about one-third of the country's 421 districts and district centers.

Earlier this month, U.S. forces vacated their largest base in Afghanistan at Bagram, north of Kabul. The rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces, and the Taliban's battlefield successes, are stoking concerns that the Western-backed government in Kabul may collapse.

Comment: Turkmenistan is gearing up and expecting the worst. Meanwhile other neighboring countries are preparing for the worst:

Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relations Director General Maj. Gen. Babar Iftikhar says Pakistan has been working on strengthening security at the border with Afghanistan amid foreign troops withdrawal.

"Right now, 90 per cent of the Pak-Afghan border has been fenced. " He added that Pakistan is "very well prepared" and the current border security mechanism is "much better."

According to Iftikhar, Pakistan's Interior Ministry is prepared for a possible influx of refugees from Afghanistan. The foreign troops withdrawal from Afghanistan, almost complete on the American side ahead of the September 11 deadline, is widely feared to bring about a humanitarian crisis in the country and cause waves of refugees to flee to the neighboring states.

Pakistan is concerned that extremists may hide among refugees coming from Afghanistan and spread uncontrollably across the region with migrant flows. The instability in the country will allow drug trafficking to flourish, as various groups inside Afghanistan will increasingly rely on the drug trade to fund their operations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin was in contact with the leaders of Central Asian countries on the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.

President Joe Biden stressed, he does not want "to send a third generation of American soldiers to fight there." The government in Kabul continues to fight, and many Afghans who have collaborated with the Western allies are being exfiltrated to the European Union.