Taliban seize key target Kunduz, other cities in northern Afghanistan
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4 min read . Updated: 08 Aug 2021, 05:53 PM IST - Afghan government defenses collapse ahead of U.S. withdrawal
Afghan government defenses collapsed in key cities in northern Afghanistan on Sunday, as the Taliban seized the strategic hub of Kunduz and pushed into other provincial capitals, taking advantage of the American military withdrawal.
In addition to Kunduz, the Taliban captured the provincial capital of Sar-e-Pul and were on the verge of completing the takeover of Taloqan, the capital of nearby Takhar province. The insurgents already seized two of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals on Friday and Saturday, and Sunday were battling government forces on the outskirts of major urban centers Herat and Kandahar.
The Taliban, who swept through the country’s rural areas earlier this summer, have managed to make these dramatic gains even as the U.S. continues airstrikes in support of the Afghan government from bases in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. Those airstrikes, however, are due to end Aug. 31, in accordance with President Biden’s decision to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan.
The U.S. has already pulled out all combat forces, except for a few hundred troops protecting the U.S. Embassy and other American installations in Kabul. Washington has also withdrawn the contractors on whom the Afghan military relied to service its own warplanes and military helicopters. That has essentially deprived Kabul of the ability to provide air support to its troops who, because of Taliban control of the countryside, usually can’t be supplied by road.
Kunduz, the largest city in northeastern Afghanistan with nearly 300,000 residents, has for years been a key target of the Taliban. The insurgents briefly seized it twice before, in 2015 and 2016, but were quickly pushed out by the Afghan military and U.S. Special Forces. An errant U.S. airstrike during the fighting in 2015 hit a trauma hospital operated by Doctors Without Borders, killing 42 people.
Besieged by the Taliban since June, Kunduz fell on Sunday morning, after two nights of heavy fighting. Local residents reached by phone said that government forces fled to the fortified airport outside the city, and that hundreds of Taliban fighters were in pursuit.
Faisal Noori, head of the Kunduz-based Shabnam radio station, said that the Taliban have taken over all government installations and freed detainees from the city’s prison on Sunday. The Kunduz headquarters of Afghanistan’s government intelligence agency was hit by an airstrike shortly after it was seized by the Taliban, he added.
“Shops are burning in the city, including in the money-changers market. The whole city has fallen. There is now no electricity or water. It’s an emergency situation," said Zabihullah Majidi, head of the Kunduz government’s media center, who has remained in the city. Many residents are trying to flee the city but are unable to because of the fighting, another resident said.
The Taliban on Sunday also seized the northern city of Sar-e-Pul, isolated for weeks by Taliban fighters who had taken all of the surrounding districts. Government officials retreated to an army base outside the city after fighters seized administrative buildings.
Reached by phone, Massoud, an employee of the Sar-e-Pul university, said the Taliban fighters knocked on doors on his street, asking residents for water and food, as they were looking for remaining security personnel.
“I never believed the city would collapse to the Taliban. But it happened in one night. It’s like seeing our nightmares turn into reality," he said, cutting the conversation short because a rocket hit a neighboring house.
On Saturday, the Taliban captured the city of Sheberghan, capital of the Jowzjan province and the traditional stronghold of ethnic Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, one of the country’s main anti-Taliban leaders who served as Afghanistan’s vice president until last year. Images released on social media showed an insurgent mockingly wearing the gold-laced military uniform of Mr. Dostum, who holds the country’s highest military rank of marshal.
On Friday, the insurgents captured Zaranj, capital of the sparsely populated Nimroz province in southwestern Afghanistan.
Mr. Dostum, who spent most of this summer in Turkey receiving medical treatment, on Saturday met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to discuss a plan to retake the city and asked to declare a state of emergency throughout the country, according to his aide Ehsan Nero.
While many parts of Afghanistan fell to the Taliban without a fight, with government forces surrendering their equipment in deals negotiated via tribal elders, the Taliban have also begun executing former government officials and other perceived enemies in areas where they solidified their control, according to residents and human-rights groups.
The U.S. Embassy advised American citizens on Saturday to leave the country on the earliest available commercial flight, adding that the embassy would offer loans to citizens who couldn’t afford a ticket. It warned that because of reduced embassy staffing and security concerns, the embassy’s ability to assist U.S. citizens in Afghanistan “is extremely limited even within Kabul."
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text
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