Qualla: Battle of Kunduz (2015)

Battle of Kunduz (2015): Introduction

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For fourteen years after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, no major Afghan city had been lost to the insurgency. Kunduz broke that record on the morning of September 28, 2015, when Taliban fighters advanced from three directions and Afghan government forces, overwhelmed, retreated to the outlying airport. The fall of this northern city -- one of Afghanistan's largest, with a population of roughly 300,000 -- was not just a military setback. It was a signal that the end of the NATO-led ISAF mission, completed the previous year, had left a security vacuum the Afghan army could not fill alone. What followed over the next two weeks was a brutal urban battle, a botched airstrike that destroyed a hospital, and a political reckoning in Kabul.

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Battle of Kunduz (2015): A Slow Strangling

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Taliban did not take Kunduz in a single stroke. The siege began months earlier, in late April 2015, with an initial assault that prompted Afghan reinforcements and a week-long standoff. By late May, some 3,000 Afghan troops had massed in the area against an estimated 2,000 Ta...

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Battle of Kunduz (2015): Fourteen Years Shattered in a Morning

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The September 28 assault was swift. Taliban forces struck from three directions simultaneously, and within hours the government troops had abandoned the city for Kunduz Airport on the outskirts. For the first time since 2001, the Taliban flag flew over a provincial capital. Count...

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Battle of Kunduz (2015): The Hospital

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In the early hours of October 3, while the battle still raged, a US AC-130 gunship began firing on the Kunduz Trauma Centre, a hospital operated by Medecins Sans Frontieres. The bombardment lasted from 2:08 AM to 3:15 AM local time. Inside were 105 patients and 80 medical staff. ...

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Battle of Kunduz (2015): The Human Toll

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Tens of thousands of Kunduz residents fled their homes in the first weeks of fighting. By September 30, at least 30 people -- mostly civilians -- had been confirmed dead, with hospitals treating roughly 340 wounded. By early October, government estimates had risen to 55 dead and ...

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Battle of Kunduz (2015): What Kunduz Revealed

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The fall of Kunduz arrived in the first year after the end of the ISAF combat mission, and it exposed uncomfortable truths. Afghan security forces, despite years of training and billions of dollars in international support, struggled to hold a major city against a determined insu...

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