The Taliban commander leading the attack on Helmand’s capital was released from jail last year under a prisoner swap that the Afghan government was pressured into by Washington.

Lashkar Gah was on the brink of collapse yesterday with government forces mounting a desperate defence of their remaining corner of the city.

Afghan troops had been beaten back to an enclave around a handful of fortified government compounds, with the front line only 200 yards from the governor’s office.

American air strikes were helping fend off the assault with the insurgents currently occupying almost all the city’s neighbourhoods.

The fall of the city which held British headquarters during the UK’s eight-year-long Helmand campaign would mark the first city taken by the insurgents in their latest offensive and a psychological and strategic boost for them.

The assault is being led by a commander using the name Maulavi Talib, who was captured last year only to be released with 5,000 other Taliban prisoners under former US president Donald Trump’s attempt to kick-start peace negotiations.

Talib, whose real name is Mullah Abdul Ahad, had been shadow deputy governor of the province when he was arrested in Sangin after being spotted as he attempted to slip through a checkpoint, the Wall Street Journal reported. He was sent to Bagram prison outside Kabul, but then freed as part of the 5,000.

The Afghan government resisted the prisoner release, but was leaned on by Washington after the Taliban said it would not start talks with Ashraf Ghani’s government otherwise.

Those freed were asked for assurances they would not return to the fight, but many are thought to have taken up arms again.

Nearly a year after the prisoner release, talks have yet to begin and the Taliban has swept government forces from scores of rural districts.

Talib resumed his old post soon after his release and has since massed fighters around Lashkar Gah.

Hundreds of families were trying to leave the city yesterday after the local army commander urged them to evacuate before a major counter attack to relieve and clear the city.

Attaullah Afghan, chairman of Helmand’s provincial council, confirmed Talib was overseeing the fight and was a key Taliban figure. He said the Taliban was executing government and security officials, but the Afghan air force was also killing civilians in air strikes.

Many families had fled because of unemployment and hunger, with no work or business in the city, he said.

Turkey meanwhile has criticised recent American plans to widen its visa lifeline programme for those who had helped the US in Afghanistan and are now facing Taliban reprisal.

Under the expanded scheme, those wanting to seek refuge will first have to get to a third country and Turkey has become a top destination for fleeing Afghans.

“Turkey does not, and will not, serve as any country’s waiting room,” Fahrettin Altun, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s communications director, told Bloomberg.

(© Telegraph Media Group 2021)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]