Doc, Pingu, I welcome your input
The Taliban will continue their strategy of capturing the countryside around the provincial capitals with the goal of using them as staging grounds for attacks against the capital cities themselves.
I expect the Taliban will not move on the provincial capitals with the goal of capturing and holding them this year unless opportunities present themselves - case in point, Kunduz on Sept 28, 2015.
>According to a government security official, the Taliban had been vastly outnumbered, with only an estimated 500 fighters remaining against about 7,000 government troops and allied militia members. However, local politicians from Kunduz said that the government had failed to provide leadership and support to its fighters in the area.Just like Mosul.
Meanwhile, we should expect more attacks like the one that happened in Wardak, as well as many more ambushes, SVBIED/VBIED/IED attacks, assassinations, turncoats suddenly firing on gov't agents, and other elements of insurgent warfare with the obvious goal of bleeding the ANDSF further since they're down to 75% strength - if you doubt this number, I can provide the math and sources to back up this claim.
Semi-competent (because there are no truly competent guys in the ANDSF) gov't officials/military commanders will be targets for assassination while incompetent gov't officials/military commanders will be left alone for the time being due to them doing more damage by being in command than the Taliban could inflict for the time being - see again, Kunduz.
Provinces like Farah, Ghazni, Helmand, Zabul, Faryab, Logar will continue to undergo heavy Taliban pressure/resistance to counteroffensives throughout the year.
Nangarhar will continue to be a 3-way clusterfuck and I do not see this changing this year unless something drastic happens.
Kunar could turn into a 3-way clusterfuck as well.
Takhar and Balkh may surprise us this year.
I expect Herat and Kandahar Provinces to be the next battlefields in the campaign of capturing countryside around provincial capitals - but again, opportunities may present themselves that the Taliban will exploit - and I expect the Taliban will eventually focus on the roads linking Nimruz Province to the rest of Afghanistan in order to isolate it further and make the province vulnerable to Taliban takeover since its main resupply will be the airport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaranj_Airport - which can be shut down with constant mortar/artillery attacks
…if only so they can control a corner of Afghanistan and then expand from that corner with increased manpower due to shortened frontlines to create a snowball effect - but this will also be the case if the Taliban capture and hold
any provincial capital against ANDSF/NATO counterattacks.