I can't imagine this as anything else than a military intelligence operation to delay / complicate an otherwise probably faster dangerous approach to local supp

I can't imagine this as anything else than a military intelligence operation to delay / complicate an otherwise probably faster dangerous approach to local supporters of US. Like salting passwords. https://cyberhoot.com/cybrary/password-salting/ https://cyberhoot.com/cybrary/password-salting/ Taliban has a lot of experience, and by now they are probably sure they got lots of disinformation in their hands, and they can't act on it without triple-checks, case-by-case. This is a working example of 4th. gen warfare, and it looks like US+NATO folks there are running the ops flawlessly, bad guys can't go faster.