Hat tip to WoTR for this commentary by a RAND analyst, who has been "on the ground" and gives an excellent overview of the context:http://warontherocks.com/2015/10/the...-afghanistan/?

He ends with:
What is readily apparent is that losing Kunduz city, even temporarily, has exposed a number of shortcomings within the Afghan government and security forces. In the aftermath of this, Afghan officials and their coalition partners need to ask some hard questions about where their efforts have gone wrong and what can credibly be done to recover from the most significant blow yet to the post-Taliban Afghan state.