Afghanistan's defense minister and army chief of staff resigned on Monday after the deadliest ever Taliban attack on a military base, threatening to overshadow a visit by US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis as Washington looks to craft a new strategy for the country. Mattis was expected to meet Afghan officials and US commanders who are pushing for more troops. But his arrival in Kabul came amid the fall-out from Friday's Taliban assault on a base in the north of the country in which more than 140 Afghan soldiers were killed. "Defense Minister Abdullah Habibi and Army Chief of Staff Qadam Shah Shahim stepped down with immediate effect," the office of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani announced in a post on its Twitter account. Shah Hussain Murtazawi, acting spokesman for Ghani, said that the resignations were because of Friday's attack on a major army base in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Ghani's office also announced that he had replaced the commanders of four army corps in response to the attack, and defense officials said as many as eight army personnel had been arrested — heightening suspicions the attackers had inside help. The attack underlines the scale of the challenge facing the Western-backed government and its international partners more than 15 years after the United States invaded the country. Habibi had come under intense pressure from Afghan lawmakers following an Islamic State attack on a Kabul military hospital in March. At a news conference on Monday, Habibi and Shahim insisted their resignations were voluntary. "We should always look for solutions to problems and therefore I have decided that there should be another guardian standing guard," Habibi said. In a serious security failure, as many as 10 Taliban fighters, dressed in Afghan army uniforms and driving military vehicles, made their way onto the base and opened fire on soldiers and new recruits eating a meal and leaving a mosque after Friday prayers, according to officials. Multiple Afghan officials said the final death toll was likely to be even higher. A senior US official said, based on intelligence and the types of tactics used, the Taliban-linked Haqqani network likely played a role. "This is very typical Haqqani network tactics, techniques and procedures," said the official, adding that the United States believed it took four to six months to plan the attack. The attack came just over a week after the United States dropped a 22,000 pound bomb, known as the "mother of all bombs," against a series of Islamic State caves and tunnels near the border with Pakistan. US officials say they were surprised by the level of attention that particular bomb got, since it did little to change the overall situation ground where the larger threat remained the Taliban, not Daesh (the so-called IS). US officials acknowledge that Afghanistan has rarely in recent years been considered a priority by decision-makers, who have instead been consumed by Syria, Iraq and, increasingly, North Korea. But there are signs the administration of new President Donald Trump is making progress in crafting a policy for Afghanistan. — Reuters
