Taliban takes key northern Afghanistan's Kunduz province as battles rage on

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talibans take kunduz afghanistan — Picture Supply : AP

Afghans examine broken outlets after preventing between Taliban and Afghan safety forces in Kunduz metropolis, northern Afghanistan

Taliban fighters seized many of the capital of northern Afghanistan’s key Kunduz province on Sunday, and took one other neighboring provincial capital after a monthlong siege. The advances had been the newest in a sequence of blows to authorities forces as U.S. troops full their pullout after practically twenty years within the nation.

The militiamen planted their flag in the primary sq. of Kunduz metropolis, the place it was seen flying atop a site visitors police sales space, a video obtained by the Related Press confirmed.

It was the fourth provincial capital to largely succumb to Taliban fighters in lower than per week, as they ramp up a push throughout Afghan’s areas, and wage an assassination marketing campaign within the capital, Kabul.

Two provincial council members mentioned the Taliban took management of the governor’s workplace and police headquarters after a day of firefights, in addition to the primary jail constructing, the place 500 inmates together with Taliban fighters had been freed.

Kunduz’s seize can be a big acquire for the Taliban and a check of their skill to take and retain territory of their marketing campaign towards the Western-backed authorities.

It is among the nation’s bigger cities with a inhabitants of greater than 340,000, and was a key space defended towards Taliban takeover by Western troops through the years.

Councilman Ghulam Rabani Rabani mentioned that preventing was persevering with on the metropolis’s airport and different components of town nonetheless in authorities arms. Kunduz is a strategic crossroads with good entry to a lot of northern Afghanistan in addition to Kabul, about 200 miles (335 kilometers) away.

One other provincial council member from Kunduz, Mohammad Yusouf Ayubi, additionally mentioned Afghan forces solely management the airport and important military barracks, and that the Taliban management the remainder of town.

“The harmless and poor should pay the price of the conflict in Kunduz and different components of the nation, each authorities forces and the Taliban are the enemy of civilians,” mentioned Ayubi. “One can’t present safety and the opposite doesn’t care about folks’s security,” he added.

The Afghan authorities in Kabul denies it has misplaced the northern metropolis, which might be the fourth provincial capital to be largely overrun by Taliban fighters within the final week. Inside Ministry Spokesman Mirwais Stanekzai mentioned that Afghan safety forces proceed to combat and have already retaken some areas from the Taliban, with out elaborating.

The Taliban has lengthy thought of town a sought-after prize. It seized Kunduz, on the coronary heart of a serious agricultural area close to Tajikistan, for round two weeks in 2015 earlier than withdrawing within the face of a NATO-backed Afghan offensive. The insurgents pushed again into town heart a yr later, briefly elevating their flag earlier than steadily being pushed out once more.

In Washington, senior officers from the White Home Nationwide Safety Council, State Division and Protection Division had been in shut contact with U.S. embassy officers in Kabul assessing the broader impression of the autumn of Kunduz, in accordance with a senior administration official. The official was not approved to remark and spoke on the situation of anonymity.

However the official indicated that the Biden administration stays decided to stay to its plan to finish the U.S. conflict in Afghanistan by the top of the month regardless of the Taliban’s speedy strategic good points.

White Home officers in current days have raised concern about studies of retaliation towards civilians in Taliban-controlled areas. They’ve additionally condemned final week’s killing of Dawa Khan Menapal, the chief of the Afghan authorities’s press operations for native and international media, and a bombing that focused appearing Protection Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, killing eight and wounding extra.

White Home press secretary Jen Psaki mentioned on Friday that current surge in assaults run counter to the “the Taliban declare to need worldwide legitimacy” and provided that the militants “shouldn’t have to remain on this trajectory.”

Additionally Sunday, the Taliban forces overran Taleqan, the capital of Takhar province which lies subsequent to Kunduz, two Afghan lawmakers mentioned. Takhar, a metropolis of some 200,000, has specific significance for the anti-Taliban northern alliance fighters who joined the U.S.-led coalition to oust the non secular militia in 2001.

Sayed Sharafuddin Aini, a member of the Afghan parliament from from Takhar province, mentioned the Taliban managed to take town within the afternoon after three months of advances throughout which it took management of all the province’s countryside.

One other MP from the world, Nazifa Yousefi Beg, mentioned that each one provincial officers together with the governor, police chief, and council members had been on the run . She mentioned she nervous about their security and needed the federal government to ship reinforcements to town.

Each lawmakers spoke by phone in Kabul, the place they reside. They mentioned they’d been in contact with officers and provincial council members within the morning and early afternoon, and Beg was interesting on to the appearing protection minister at his workplace.

Taleqan had been beneath siege in current weeks and largely reduce off from the remainder of the nation by Taliban forces that had taken management of the encircling countryside over the previous three months.

The insurgents have been on a country-wide offensive that intensified as U.S. and NATO troops started to wrap up their withdrawal from the nation this summer time. With Taliban assaults growing, Afghan safety forces and authorities troops have retaliated with airstrikes aided by the USA. The preventing has raised rising issues about civilian casualties.

On Saturday, Taliban fighters entered the capital of the northern Jawzjan province after sweeping by way of 9 of 10 districts within the province. A number of different of the nation’s 34 provincial capitals are threatened as Taliban fighters sweep by way of giant swaths of Afghanistan at a shocking pace.

Earlier final week their fighters captured the ninth of 10 police districts of Lashkar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province. Heavy preventing there continues, as do U.S. and Afghan authorities airstrikes, considered one of which broken a well being clinic and highschool.

The Protection Ministry confirmed airstrikes occurred however mentioned they focused Taliban positions, killing 54 fighters and wounding 23 others. It made no point out of a clinic or faculty being bombed in its assertion. Deputy provincial council chairman Majid Akhund mentioned the services had been beneath Taliban management after they had been struck.

As they rolled by way of provincial capitals, the Taliban issued an English language assertion on Sunday saying that residents, authorities staff, and safety officers had nothing to concern from them.

“No former civil servant and different authorities worker together with those that labored within the safety sector … ought to have any concern of the Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate, nor flee in the direction of different locations,” mentioned the assertion.

Revenge assaults and repressive therapy of ladies have been reported nonetheless in areas now beneath Taliban management.