Taliban enter Kandahar city

KABUL: Taliban forces on Friday penetrated Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city, in a new phase of a sweeping insurgent offensive that has captured territory across the country since May 1, when US forces began withdrawing. The insurgents had been encroaching on Kandahar, the capital of the province of the same name, for several weeks, capturing surrounding districts, before entering the city for the first time on Friday.
Taliban fighters entered Kandahar’s Seventh police district on Friday, seizing houses and engaging with security forces in the area, said Bahir Ahmadi, spokesperson for the Kandahar governor. Commandos and other special forces units were battling the insurgents well into the evening, proceeding cautiously because the area is heavily populated, Ahmadi said. The Afghan air force struck a number of Taliban positions in neighbouring districts, as the insurgents attempted to push way into the city. The attack comes less than 24 hours after President Biden defended his decision to end US involvement in Afghanistan.
The Afghan were also preparing to try to retake border crossings seized by the Taliban. A spokesman for Herat province said the authorities were deploying fresh troops to retake the Islam Qala post, the biggest trade crossing between Iran and Afghanistan. Afghan security forces have struggled to defend themselves against the Taliban, who in the span of just over two months have managed to seize at least 150 of Afghanistan’s roughly 400 districts. Kandahar city, the main one in Afghanistan’s ethnic Pashtun heartland, was the birthplace of the Taliban during the country’s civil war in 1990s.