Taliban
US sending 3K troops for partial Afghan embassy evacuation
Just weeks before the U.S. is scheduled to end its war in Afghanistan, the Biden administration is rushing 3,000 fresh troops to the Kabul airport to help with a partial evacuation of the U.S. Embassy. The move highlights the stunning speed of a Taliban takeover of much of the country, including their capture on Thursday of Kandahar, the second-largest city and the birthplace of the Taliban movement.
The State Department said the embassy will continue functioning, but Thursday’s dramatic decision to bring in thousands of additional U.S. troops is a sign of waning confidence in the Afghan government’s ability to hold off the Taliban surge. The announcement came just hours after the Taliban captured the western city of Herat as well as Ghazni, a strategic provincial capital south of Kabul. The advance, and the partial U.S. Embassy evacuation, increasingly isolate the nation’s capital, home to millions of Afghans.
“This is not abandonment. This is not an evacuation. This is not a wholesale withdrawal,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said. “What this is is a reduction in the size of our civilian footprint.”
Also read: Taliban take 10th Afghan provincial capital in blitz
Price rejected the idea that Thursday’s moves sent encouraging signals to an already emboldened Taliban, or demoralizing ones to frightened Afghan civilians. “The message we are sending to the people of Afghanistan is one of enduring partnership,” Price insisted.
President Joe Biden, who has remained adamant about ending the 19-year U.S. mission in Afghanistan at the end of this month despite the Taliban sweep, conferred with senior national security officials overnight, then gave the order for the additional temporary troops Thursday morning.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday. The U.S. also warned Taliban officials directly that the U.S. would respond if the Taliban attacked Americans during the temporary U.S. military deployments.
Britain’s ministry of defense said Thursday that it will send around 600 troops to Afghanistan on a short-term basis to help U.K. nationals leave the country. And Canadian special forces will deploy to Afghanistan to help Canadian staff leave Kabul, a source familiar with the plan told The Associated Press. That official, who was not authorized to talk publicly about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity, did not say how many special forces would be sent.
The Pentagon’s chief spokesman, John Kirby, said that in addition to sending three infantry battalions — two from the Marine Corps and one from the Army — to the airport, the Pentagon will dispatch 3,500 to 4,000 troops from a combat brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division to Kuwait to act as a reserve force. He said they will be on standby “in case we need even more” than the 3,000 going to Kabul.
Also, about 1,000 Army and Air Force troops, including military police and medical personnel, will be sent to Qatar in coming days to support a State Department effort to accelerate its processing of Special Immigrant Visa applications from Afghans who once worked for the U.S. government and feel threated by the Taliban, Kirby said.
Also read: US keeping distance as Afghan forces face Taliban rout
The 3,000 troops who are to arrive at the Kabul airport in the next day or two, Kirby said, are to assist with security at the airport and to help process the departure of embassy personnel — not to get involved in the Afghan government’s war with the Taliban. Biden decided in April to end U.S. military involvement in the war, and the withdrawal is scheduled to be complete by Aug. 31.
The U.S. had already withdrawn most of its troops, but had kept about 650 troops in Afghanistan to support U.S. diplomatic security, including at the airport.
Kirby said the influx of fresh troops does not mean the U.S. is reentering combat with the Taliban.
“This is a temporary mission with a narrow focus,” he told reporters at the Pentagon.
The viability of the U.S.-trained Afghan army, however, is looking increasingly dim. A new military assessment says Kabul could come under Taliban pressure as soon as September and, if current trends hold, the country could fall to the Taliban within a few months.
Price, the State Department spokesman, said diplomatic work will continue at the Kabul embassy.
“Our first responsibility has always been protecting the safety and the security of our citizens serving in Afghanistan, and around the world,” Price said at a briefing, calling the the speed of the Taliban advance and resulting instability “of grave concern.”
Shortly before Price’s announcement, the embassy in Kabul urged U.S. citizens to leave immediately — reiterating a warning it first issued Saturday.
The latest drawdown will further limit the ability of the embassy to conduct business, although Price maintained it would still be able to function. Nonessential personal had already been withdrawn from the embassy in April after Biden’s withdrawal announcement and it was not immediately clear how many staffers would remain on the heavily fortified compound. As of Thursday, there were roughly 4,200 staffers at the embassy, but most of those are Afghan nationals, according to the State Department.
Also read: India begins evacuating its nationals from Afghanistan
Apart from a complete evacuation and shuttering of the embassy, Price said other contingency plans were being weighed, including possibly relocating its operations to the airport.
As the staff reductions take place over the course of the next several weeks, Price said the U.S., led by the special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, would continue to push for a peace agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government at talks currently taking place in Doha, Qatar.
The Taliban, who ruled the country from 1996 until U.S. forces invaded after the 9/11 attacks, have taken 12 of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals as part of a weeklong sweep that has given them effective control of about two-thirds of the country.
Taliban take 10th Afghan provincial capital in blitz
The Taliban captured a provincial capital near Kabul on Thursday, the 10th the insurgents have taken over a weeklong blitz across Afghanistan as the U.S. and NATO prepare to withdraw entirely from the country after decades of war.
The militants raised their white flags imprinted with a famous Islamic proclamation over the city of Ghazni, just 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of Kabul. Sporadic fighting continued at an intelligence base and an army installation outside the city, two local officials told The Associated Press.
The Taliban published videos and images online showing them in Ghazni, the capital of Ghazni province.
Read:US keeping distance as Afghan forces face Taliban rout
Afghan security forces and the government have not responded to repeated requests for comment over the days of fighting. However, President Ashraf Ghani is trying to rally a counteroffensive relying on his country’s special forces, the militias of warlords and American airpower ahead of the U.S. and NATO withdrawal at the end of the month.
While the capital of Kabul itself has not been directly threatened in the advance, the stunning speed of the offensive raises questions of how long the Afghan government can maintain control of the slivers of the country it has left. The government may eventually be forced to pull back to defend the capital and just a few other cities as thousands displaced by the fighting fled to Kabul and now live in open fields and parks.
Ghazni provincial council member Amanullah Kamrani told the AP the two bases outside of the city remain held by government forces. Mohammad Arif Rahmani, a lawmaker from Ghazni, similarly said the city had collapsed to the insurgents.
Fighting meanwhile raged in Lashkar Gah, one of Afghanistan’s largest cities in the Taliban heartland of Helmand province, where surrounded government forces hoped to hold onto the capital after the militants’ weeklong blitz has seen them already seized nine others around the country.
On Wednesday, a suicide car bombing marked the latest wave to target the capital’s regional police headquarters. By Thursday, the Taliban had taken the building, with some police officers surrendering to the militants and others retreating to the nearby governor’s office that’s still held by government forces, said Nasima Niazi, a lawmaker from Helmand.
Read: Battle gains challenge US hopes of better-behaved Taliban
Niazi said she believed the Taliban attack killed and wounded security force members, but she had no casualty breakdown. Another suicide car bombing targeted the provincial prison, but the government still held it, she said. The Taliban’s other advances have seen the militants free hundreds of its members over the last week, bolstering their ranks while seizing American-supplied weapons and vehicles.
US keeping distance as Afghan forces face Taliban rout
Afghan government forces are collapsing even faster than U.S. military leaders thought possible just a few months ago when President Joe Biden ordered a full withdrawal. But there’s little appetite at the White House, the Pentagon or among the American public for trying to stop the rout and it probably is too late to do so.
Biden has made clear he has no intention of reversing the decision he made last spring, even as the outcome seems to point toward a Taliban takeover. With most U.S. troops now gone and the Taliban accelerating their battlefield gains, American military leaders are not pressing him to change his mind. They know that the only significant option would be for the president to restart the war he already decided to end.
The Taliban, who ruled the country from 1996 until U.S. forces invaded after the 9/11 attacks, captured three more provincial capitals Wednesday, giving them effective control of about two-thirds of the country. The insurgents have no air force and are outnumbered by U.S.-trained Afghan defense forces, but they have captured territory with stunning speed.
John Kirby, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said the Afghans still have time to save themselves from final defeat.
Read:India begins evacuating its nationals from Afghanistan
“No potential outcome has to be inevitable, including the fall of Kabul,” Kirby told reporters. “It doesn’t have to be that way. It really depends on what kind of political and military leadership the Afghans can muster to turn this around.”
Biden made a similar point a day earlier, telling reporters that U.S. troops had done all they could over the past 20 years to assist the Afghans.
“They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation,” he said.
The United States continues to support the Afghan military with limited airstrikes, but those have not made a strategic difference thus far and are scheduled to end when the U.S. formally ends its role in the war on Aug. 31. Biden could continue airstrikes beyond that date, but given his firm stance on ending the war, that seems unlikely.
“My suspicion, my strong suspicion, is that the 31st of August timeline’s going to hold,” said Carter Malkasian, who advised U.S. military leaders in Afghanistan and Washington.
Senior U.S. military officials had cautioned Biden that a full U.S. withdrawal could lead to a Taliban takeover, but the president decided in April that continuing the war was a waste. He said Tuesday that his decision holds, even amid talk that the Taliban could soon be within reach of Kabul, threatening the security of U.S. and other foreign diplomats.
Read:2 more Afghan provincial capitals fall to Taliban on Monday
The most recent American military assessment, taking into account the Taliban’s latest gains, says Kabul could be under insurgent pressure by September and that the country could fall entirely to Taliban control within a couple of months, according to a defense official who discussed the internal analysis Wednesday on condition of anonymity.
Officials said that there has been no decision or order for an evacuation of American diplomatic personnel from Afghanistan. But one official said it is now time for serious conversations about whether the U.S. military should begin to move assets into the region to be ready in case the State Department calls for a sudden evacuation.
Kirby declined to discuss any evacuation planning, but one congressional official said a recent National Security Council meeting had discussed preliminary planning for a potential evacuation of the U.S. Embassy but came to no conclusions.
Any such plan would involve identifying U.S. troops, aircraft and other assets that may have to operate from within Afghanistan or nearby areas. The U.S. already has warships in the region, including the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier and the USS Iwo Jima amphibious ready group with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard.
Military officials watching the deteriorating situation said that so far the Taliban hasn’t taken steps to threaten Kabul. But it isn’t clear if the Taliban will wait until it has gained control of the bulk of the country before attempting to seize the capital.
Military commanders have long warned that it would be a significant challenge for the Afghan military to hold off the Taliban through the end of the year. In early May, shortly after Biden announced his withdrawal decision, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he foresaw “some really dramatic, bad possible outcomes” in a worst-case scenario. He held out hope that the government would unify and hold off the Taliban, and said the outcome could clarify by the end of the summer.
Read: Battle gains challenge US hopes of better-behaved Taliban
The security of the U.S. diplomatic corps has been talked about for months, even before the Taliban’s battlefield blitz. The military has long had various planning options for evacuating personnel from Afghanistan. Those options would largely be determined by the White House and the State Department.
A key component of the options would be whether the U.S. military would have unfettered access to the Kabul international airport, allowing personnel to be flown systematically out of the capital. In a grimmer environment, American forces might have to fight their way in and out if the Taliban have infiltrated the city.
The U.S. also would have to determine who would be evacuated: just American embassy personnel and the U.S. military, or also other embassies, American citizens, and Afghans who worked with the U.S. In that last category are former interpreters and those who face retaliation from the Taliban. The U.S. has already started pulling out hundreds of those Afghans who assisted troops during the war.
Senior defense leaders have been talking and meeting daily, laying out their grim assessments of the security situation in Afghanistan. Officials pointed to the fall of Baghlan Province as a worrisome bellwether, because it provides the Taliban with a base and route to Kabul from the north.
Battle gains challenge US hopes of better-behaved Taliban
Taliban conquests in Afghanistan are challenging the Biden administration’s hopes that a desire for international respect — and for international aid and cash — may moderate the fundamentalist militia’s worst behaviors when the U.S. ends its war there.
Showing little interest in a diplomatic settlement, Taliban commanders have sped up their battlefield advances ahead of the U.S. military’s withdrawal at the end of this month. They’ve seized six provincial capitals in the past week.
And while some Taliban commanders have behaved with restraint in newly captured territory, rights groups say others have acted much like the brutal Taliban the U.S. overthrew in 2001. That includes allegedly killing detainees en masse and demanding, in an allegation denied by a Taliban spokesman, that communities provide them with females above age 15 to marry.
Still, Biden administration officials have kept up the hopeful claim that a desire for international approval might influence Taliban actions. They reject criticism by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who opposes the withdrawal and dismisses what he calls “diplomatic carrots.″
Read:India begins evacuating its nationals from Afghanistan
“If the Taliban claim to want international legitimacy these actions are not going to get them the legitimacy they seek,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday, in one of many such administration warnings.
U.S. envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad traveled to Qatar on Tuesday to make that point to Taliban officials directly, telling Voice of America that if the Taliban took over Afghanistan by force “they will become a pariah state.”
Regardless of whether the Taliban heeds that warning, President Joe Biden is showing no sign of slowing or reversing a decision to withdraw from the war.
The United States is ending its nearly 20-year combat mission in Afghanistan on Aug. 31 under a deal that President Donald Trump signed with the Taliban in 2020. The U.S. invasion beginning in October 2001 broke up the Afghanistan-based al-Qaida that had plotted the Sept. 11 attacks. It overthrew, with Afghan allies, the Taliban government that had refused to surrender Osama bin Laden.
Only three countries — Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — recognized the old Taliban government. The inward-looking regime enforced the strictest interpretation of Islamic law. It banned singing, kite-flying and watching TV, and staged public hangings at Kabul’s main sports stadium.
Then-Taliban ruler Mullah Mohammed Omar made a gesture to the international community before 9/11 by ending cultivation of heroin poppies, something U.N. officials verified. But Omar told his ruling council he thought there was nothing his government could to do end international condemnation.
Omar’s Taliban council members at the time acknowledged the financial pain sanctions were causing.
For today’s Taliban, U.S. talk of things like international inclusion, aid and reconstruction money might have mattered more had it come even a few years ago, said Andrew Watkins, senior Afghanistan analyst for the International Crisis Group.
A stronger Taliban today has been emboldened by the U.S. withdrawal. Hopes of grabbing all or much of Afghanistan, with all the border import fees and other revenues a country offers, make international support less essential.
In talks in Qatar, “Taliban political representatives did express genuine interest in international legitimacy and all the benefits that come with it,” Watkins said. But “what the Taliban never did was indicate a willingness to compromise” their behavior enough to lock down any such global recognition or financial support, he said.
Trump and Biden officials have hoped the prospect of ending its old outcast status would moderate the ethnic Pashtun fundamentalist group’s behavior in a range of ways: negotiating its place in Afghanistan’s power structure rather than grabbing it, treating Afghanistan’s minority groups humanely and barring Islamic extremist groups from using the country as a base to attack regionally or globally.
Read: 2 more Afghan provincial capitals fall to Taliban on Monday
Yet the Taliban’s political and military wings often seem at odds with the Taliban representatives in Qatar, who negotiate while the Taliban field commanders roll over territory at home.
As the political leaders talk compromise and power-sharing, Pakistani officials who are familiar with private discussions with the insurgent movement say they want complete power.
They also envision a strict religious government, accepting girls going to school and women working, but only within their Islamic injunctions. The Pakistani officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Some European diplomats are more skeptical than Americans that international opinion can sway the Taliban. So is Afghanistan’s president.
“Yes, they have changed, but negatively,” Ashraf Ghani, himself widely blamed for not doing more to strengthen his government and its defenders vs. the Taliban, told his Cabinet this month.
The Taliban have become “more cruel, more oppressive,” and would only share power if forced to on the battlefield, Ghani said.
Scenes of black-turbaned Taliban officials signing the U.S. withdrawal deal with Trump officials itself granted the Taliban new legitimacy. So did Trump’s praise of America’s Taliban battlefield enemies as “very tough, very smart.”
Eager to maintain trade and economic ties regionally if not globally, Taliban officials have been calling on Central Asian governments and diplomats in Russia and China, assuring the Taliban would be good neighbors.
The Taliban largely have honored at least one part of their deal with Trump, holding off from attacks on withdrawing U.S. forces.
Read: Taliban press on, take another Afghan provincial capital
The deal’s core requirement for Americans says the Taliban can’t again allow al-Qaida or anyone else to use Afghanistan to threaten the United States or its allies.
But an April Pentagon report said the Taliban maintained “mutually beneficial” relations with al-Qaida-related groups, and called it unlikely the militia would take substantive action against them.
Overall, “I don’t think the U.S. is going to get what it hoped for,” said Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Afghanistan researcher and former U.S. development official in Central Asia.
The Taliban ”don’t really have an incentive,″ unless their plans for any governing have changed, and it’s not clear that they have, she said. “I think there was a lot of wishful thinking that the Taliban had changed, you know, in the fundamental sense.”
US vows to isolate Taliban if they take power by force
A U.S. peace envoy brought a warning to the Taliban on Tuesday that any government that comes to power through force in Afghanistan won’t be recognized internationally after a series of cities fell to the insurgent group in stunningly quick succession.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. envoy, traveled to Doha, Qatar, where the Taliban maintain a political office, to tell the group that there was no point in pursuing victory on the battlefield because a military takeover of the capital of Kabul would guarantee they would be global pariahs. He and others hope to persuade Taliban leaders to return to peace talks with the Afghan government as American and NATO forces finish their pullout from the country.
The insurgents have captured six out of 34 provincial capitals in the country in less than a week, including Kunduz in Kunduz province — one of the country’s largest cities. On Sunday, they planted their flag in the main square, but government forces still controlled the strategic airport and an army base on the city’s outskirts.
READ: Senior photojournalist Lutfur Rahman Binu passes away
They are now battling the Western-backed government for control of several others. Late on Tuesday, Taliban forces entered Farah and were seen in front to the provincial governor’s office.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed tweeted the insurgents had taken the city, which is the capital of a province with the same name. But Abdul Naser Farahi — a lawmaker from the area who is in Kabul — said the government still retained control of the intelligence department and a military base.
After a 20-year Western military mission and billions of dollars spent training and shoring up Afghan forces, many are at odds to explain why the regular forces have collapsed, fleeing the battle sometimes by the hundreds. The fighting has fallen largely to small groups of elite forces and the Afghan air force.
The success of the Taliban blitz has added urgency to the need to restart the long-stalled talks that could end the fighting and move Afghanistan toward an inclusive interim administration. The insurgents have so far refused to return to the negotiating table.
Khalilzad’s mission in Qatar is to “help formulate a joint international response to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan,” according to the U.S. State Department.
He plans to “press the Taliban to stop their military offensive and to negotiate a political settlement, which is the only path to stability and development in Afghanistan,” the State Department said.
Meanwhile, the Taliban military chief released an audio message to his fighters on Tuesday, ordering them not to harm Afghan forces and government officials in territories they conquer. The recording was shared on Twitter by the Taliban spokesman in Doha, Mohammad Naim.
In the nearly five-minute audio, Mohammad Yaqoob, the son of late Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, also told the insurgents to stay out of abandoned homes of government and security officials who have fled, leave marketplaces open and protect places of business, including banks.
READ: Taliban press on, take another Afghan provincial capital
It was not immediately clear if Taliban fighters on the ground would heed Yaqoob’s instructions. Some civilians who have fled Taliban advances have said that the insurgents imposed repressive restrictions on women and burned down schools. The office of the U.N. human rights chief said it has received reports of summary executions and military use and destruction of homes, schools and clinics in captured areas.There have also been reports of revenge killings. The insurgents have claimed responsibility for killing a comedian in southern Kandahar, assassinating the government’s media chief in Kabul and a bombing that targeted acting Defense Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, killing eight and wounding more. The minister was not harmed.
The intensifying war has driven thousands of people to Kabul, where many are living in parks. The fighting has also increased the number of civilian casualties.
The U.N. human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, said Tuesday that her office had counted at least 183 deaths and hundreds of injuries among civilians in a handful of cities in recent weeks – but cautioned that “the real figures will be much higher.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross said that its staff has treated more than 4,000 Afghans this month in their 15 facilities across the country, including in Helmand and Kandahar, where Afghan and U.S. airstrikes are trying to rein in the Taliban onslaught.
“We are seeing homes destroyed, medical staff and patients put at tremendous risk, and hospitals, electricity and water infrastructure damaged,” Eloi Fillion, ICRC’s head of delegation in Afghanistan, said in a statement. “The use of explosive weaponry in cities is having an indiscriminate impact on the population.”
The surge in Taliban attacks began in April, when the U.S. and NATO announced they would end their military presence and bring the last of their troops home. The final date of the withdrawal is Aug. 31, but the U.S. Central Command has said the pullout is already 95% complete.
On Monday, the U.S. emphasized that the Biden administration now sees the fight as one for Afghan political and military leaders to win or lose — and showed no sign of stepping up airstrikes despite the Taliban gains.
Khalilzad, the architect of the peace deal the Trump administration brokered with the Taliban, was expected to hold talks with key regional players and will likely seek a commitment from Afghanistan’s neighbors and other counties in the region not to recognize a Taliban government that comes to power by force. When the Taliban last ran Afghanistan, three countries recognized their rule: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Senior Afghan officials have also travelled to Doha, including Abdullah Abdullah, who heads the government’s reconciliation council. Pakistan’s national security adviser, Moeed Yusuf, on Monday called for “reinvigorated” efforts to get all sides in the conflict back to talks, describing a protracted war in Afghanistan as a “nightmare scenario” for Pakistan.
Yusuf refused to definitively say whether Pakistan, which holds considerable sway over the Taliban, would recognize a Taliban government installed by force, saying instead that Pakistan wants to see an “inclusive” government in Kabul.
India begins evacuating its nationals from Afghanistan
India has started evacuating its nationals from Afghanistan as the Taliban advance escalates in the war-ravaged country.
In a tweet on Tuesday, the Indian consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif asked all its nationals in the largest city of northern Afghanistan to leave the country on a "special flight" and urged them to contact the diplomatic mission at the earliest.
"A special flight is leaving from Mazar-e-Sharif to New Delhi. Any Indian nationals in and around Mazar-e-Sharif are requested to leave for India in the special flight scheduled to depart late today (Tuesday) evening," the Indian consulate tweeted.
Also read: 2 more Afghan provincial capitals fall to Taliban on MondayAll Indian diplomatic staff and their family members have already been evacuated from the three other consulates in Afghanistan -- Kandahar, Jalalabad and Herat, foreign ministry sources told UNB.
There are still 1,500 Indian nationals staying in Afghanistan, according to official data.
Meanwhile, in a security advisory on Tuesday, the Indian Embassy in Kabul asked all Indian nationals visiting, staying and working in Afghanistan to keep themselves updated on the availability of commercial flights and make immediate arrangements to return to India.
The Taliban are, in fact, advancing at a rapid pace in Afghanistan as American troops embark on a withdrawal mode. US President Joe Biden has already confirmed that the American troops will end their 20-year military presence in Afghanistan by this month-end.
Also read: Dhaka seeks UN role in Afghanistan to avert people’s sufferings
India is worried about the implications of the American troops leaving Afghanistan, given the fact that it has so far infused over three billion US dollars worth development aid into that country and the horrific memories of the Taliban's role in the hijacking of an airliner in 1999.
2 more Afghan provincial capitals fall to Taliban on Monday
The Taliban took control of two more provincial capitals in Afghanistan on Monday, officials said. Their fall marked the latest development in a weekslong, relentless Taliban offensive as American and NATO forces finalize their pullout from the war-torn country.
The militants have ramped up their push across much of Afghanistan, turning their guns on provincial capitals after taking large swaths of land in the mostly rural countryside. On Monday they controlled five of the country’s 34 provincial capitals. At the same time, they have been waging an assassination campaign targeting senior government officials in the capital, Kabul.
Read: Taliban press on, take another Afghan provincial capital
The sweep comes despite condemnations by the international community and warnings from the United Nations that a military victory and takeover by the Taliban would not be recognized. The Taliban have also not heeded appeals to return to the negotiating table and continue long-stalled peace talks with the Afghan government.
Two lawmakers from northern Samangan province — Hayatullah Samangani and Mahboba Rahmat — said the provincial capital of Aybak fell to the Taliban on Monday afternoon without resistance. They said government officials fled to another district.
Provincial council member Mohammad Hashim Sarwari said Taliban fighters earlier had captured three districts of the province before overrunning the capital.
Another provincial lawmaker from Samangan, Ziauddin Zia, said some government installations were still under government control as security forces resisted Taliban fighters.
According to Mohammad Noor Rahmani, the council chief of northern Sar-e Pul province, the Taliban overran the provincial capital after over a week of resistance by the Afghan security forces, after which the city of Sar-e Pul collapsed. The government forces have now completely withdrawn from the province, he said.
Several pro-government local militia commanders also surrendered to the Taliban without a fight, allowing the insurgents to gain control of the entire province, Rahmani added.
The cities of Aybak and Sar-e Pul join three other provincial capitals now fully under Taliban control: Zaranj, the capital of western Nimroz province, the city of Sheberghan, the capital of northern Zawzjan province, and Taleqan, the capital of another northern province with the same name.
The Taliban are also fighting on for control of the city of Kunduz, the capital of northern Kunduz province. On Sunday, they planted their flag in the city’s main square, where it was seen flying atop a traffic police booth, a video obtained by The Associated Press showed.
Kunduz’s capture would be a significant gain for the Taliban and a test of their ability to take and retain territory in their campaign against the Western-backed government. It is one of the country’s larger cities with a population of more than 340,000, and was a key area defended against Taliban takeovers by Western troops over the years.
Read: Taliban take much of provincial capital in south Afghanistan
After billions of dollars spent in aiding, training and shoring up Afghan forces, many are at odds how to explain the surprising Taliban blitz that has threatened — and by now taken — several of the country’s 34 provincial capitals.
Rahmani, the council chief in Sar-e Pul, said the provincial capital had been under siege by the militants for weeks, with no reinforcements being sent to the overstretched Afghan forces. A video circulating on social media Monday shows a number of Taliban fighters, standing in front of the Sar-e Pul governor’s office and congratulating each other for the victory.
The country-wide Taliban offensive intensified as U.S. and NATO troops began to wrap up their withdrawal from Afghanistan this summer. With Taliban attacks increasing, Afghan security forces and government troops have retaliated with airstrikes aided by the United States. The fighting has also raised growing concerns about civilian casualties.
On Monday, UNICEF said it was shocked by the increasing number of casualties among children amid the escalating violence in Afghanistan. Over the past three days, at least 27 children have been killed in various provinces, including 20 in Kandahar, it said.
“These atrocities are also evidence of the brutal nature and scale of violence in Afghanistan which preys on already vulnerable children,” the agency said. It did not identify the side responsible for the killings. UNICEF also raised the alarm over what it said was increased recruitment of children by armed groups.
The Taliban have also taken most of Lashkar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province, where they took nine of the 10 police districts in the city last week. Heavy fighting there continues, as do U.S. and Afghan government airstrikes, one of which damaged a health clinic and a high school.
Helmand health department chief Sher Ali Shakir said Monday that in the previous 24 hours, seven people were killed and 95 were wounded in the fighting and were transferred to hospitals in the province.
As they rolled through provincial capitals, the Taliban issued an English language statement on Sunday saying that residents, government employees, and security officials had nothing to fear from them.
However, revenge attacks and repressive treatment of women have been reported in areas now under Taliban control.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people displaced by fighting in northern provinces have reached Kabul, where they are living in parks without adequate access to drinking water amid scorching summer temperatures.
“We walked with slippers, didn’t have the chance to wear our shoes,” said Bibi Ruqia, who left northern Takhar province after a bomb hit her house. “We had to escape, now we are here in a park.”
In Kabul on Sunday, unknown gunmen shot dead a journalist and a colleague, said police spokesman Ferdaws Faramarz. He said Toofan Omar was also a prosecutor in Paktia province. Omar was traveling from Bagram to Kabul when his car was ambushed.
“Its not clear whether it was the result of a personal dispute or he was killed for being a prosecutor or journalist,” Faramarz said.
The Taliban in response to a query from The Associated Press said they were investigating the incident.
The Taliban often target government officials and those they perceive as working for the government or foreign forces, though several attacks have been claimed by the Islamic State group.
Taliban press on, take another Afghan provincial capital
The Taliban on Monday took control of another provincial capital in Afghanistan, an official said. The city’s fall was the latest in a weekslong, relentless Taliban offensive as American and NATO forces finalize their pullout from the war-torn country.
The militants have ramped up their push across much of Afghanistan, turning their guns on provincial capitals after taking large swaths of land in the mostly rural countryside. At the same time, they have been waging an assassination campaign targeting senior government officials in the capital, Kabul.
The sweep comes despite condemnations by the international community and warnings from the United Nations that a military victory and takeover by the Taliban would not be recognized. The Taliban have also not heeded appeals to return to the negotiating table and continue long-stalled peace talks with the Afghan government.
According to Mohammad Noor Rahmani, the council chief of northern Sar-e Pul province, the Taliban overran the provincial capital after over a week of resistance by the Afghan security forces, after which the city of Sar-e Pul collapsed. The government forces have now completely withdrawn from the province, he said.
Also read: Taliban take much of provincial capital in south Afghanistan
Several pro-government local militia commanders also surrendered to the Taliban without a fight, allowing the insurgents to gain control of the entire province, Rahmani added.
The city of Sar-e Pul joins three other provincial capitals now fully under Taliban control: Zaranj, the capital of western Nimroz province, the city of Shibirghan, the capital of northern Zawzjan province, and Taleqan, the capital of another northern province with the same name.
The Taliban are also fighting on for control of the city of Kunduz, the capital of northern Kunduz province. On Sunday, they planted their flag in the city’s main square, where it was seen flying atop a traffic police booth, a video obtained by The Associated Press showed.
Kunduz’s capture would be a significant gain for the Taliban and a test of their ability to take and retain territory in their campaign against the Western-backed government. It is one of the country’s larger cities with a population of more than 340,000, and was a key area defended against Taliban takeovers by Western troops over the years.
After billions of dollars spent in aiding, training and shoring up Afghan forces, many are at odds how to explain the surprising Taliban blitz that has threatened — and by now taken — several of the country’s 34 provincial capitals.
Rahmani, the council chief in Sar-e Pul, said the provincial capital had been under siege by the militants for weeks, with no reinforcements being sent to the overstretched Afghan forces. A video circulating on social media Monday shows a number of Taliban fighters, standing in front of the Sar-e Pul governor’s office and congratulating each other for the victory.
The country-wide Taliban offensive intensified as U.S. and NATO troops began to wrap up their withdrawal from Afghanistan this summer. With Taliban attacks increasing, Afghan security forces and government troops have retaliated with airstrikes aided by the United States. The fighting has also raised growing concerns about civilian casualties.
Also read: To reach a peace deal, Taliban say Afghan president must go
On Monday, UNICEF said it was shocked by the increasing number of casualties among children amid the escalating violence in Afghanistan. Over the past three days, at least 27 children have been killed in various provinces, including 20 in Kandahar, it said.
“These atrocities are also evidence of the brutal nature and scale of violence in Afghanistan which preys on already vulnerable children,” the agency said. It did not identify the side responsible for the killings. UNICEF also raised the alarm over what it said was increased recruitment of children by armed groups.
The Taliban have also taken most of Lashkar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province, where they took nine of the 10 police districts in the city last week. Heavy fighting there continues, as do U.S. and Afghan government airstrikes, one of which damaged a health clinic and a high school.
The Defense Ministry confirmed airstrikes occurred but said they targeted Taliban positions, killing 54 fighters and wounding 23. Its statement made no mention of a clinic or school being bombed. Deputy provincial council chairman Majid Akhund said the facilities had been under Taliban control when they were struck.
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On Saturday, Taliban fighters entered the capital of the northern Jawzjan province after sweeping through nine of 10 districts in the province. And the city of Kandahar, the provincial capital of Kandahar, also remains under siege.
As they rolled through provincial capitals, the Taliban issued an English language statement on Sunday saying that residents, government employees, and security officials had nothing to fear from them.
However, revenge attacks and repressive treatment of women have been reported in areas now under Taliban control.
Afghan official: Acting defense minister targeted in attack
A powerful explosion rocked an upscale neighborhood of Afghanistan’s capital Tuesday in an attack that apparently targeted the country’s acting defense minister. At least 10 people were wounded, a health official said.
Several smaller explosions could be heard as well as small arms fire. It was unclear if the wounded were hurt in the explosion or by gunfire.
Read: Taliban take much of provincial capital in south Afghanistan
No one immediately took responsibility for the attack, but it came as Taliban insurgents have been pressing ahead with an offensive that is putting pressure on the provincial capitals in the south and west of the country.
Interior Ministry spokesman Mirwais Stanekzai said the blast happened in the posh Sherpur neighborhood, which is in a deeply secure section of the capital known as the green zone. It is home to several senior government officials.
Stanekzai said it appeared the guesthouse of acting Defense Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi was targeted. His Jamiat-e-Islami party was told the minister was not in the guesthouse and his family had been safely evacuated.
A party leader and former vice president, Younus Qanooni, reassured the party in a message shared on social media that the minister and his family were safe.
The Defense Ministry released a video in which Mohammadi says that his guards had been wounded in a suicide attack. “I assure my beloved countrymen that such attacks cannot have any impact on my willingness to defend my countrymen and my country,” he says.
Read: Women’s Groups Call for UN Peacekeeping Force in Afghanistan
Details of the attack were sketchy even as it ended, but gunmen appeared to have entered the area after the explosion. Stanekzai said all four attackers were eventually killed by security personnel and a cleanup operation was conducted by police. All roads leading to the minister’s house and guesthouse were closed, he said.
Hundreds of residents in the area were moved to safety, said Ferdaws Faramarz, spokesman for the Kabul police chief. He said security personnel had also carried out house-to-house searches.
At least 10 people were wounded in the attack and were taken to hospitals in the capital, said Health Ministry spokesman Dastgir Nazari.
The Islamic State group has claimed some recent attacks in Kabul but most have gone unclaimed, with the government blaming the Taliban and the Taliban blaming the government.
The U.S. State Department condemned the bombing.
Read: UN: Women, children casualties on the rise in Afghanistan
“I’m not in a position to attribute it officially just yet, but, of course, it does bear all the hallmarks of the spate of Taliban attacks that we have seen in recent weeks,” spokesman Ned Price said in Washington. “We unequivocally condemn the bombing and we continue to stand by our Afghan partners. I think the broader point in all of this is that there is broad international consensus that there is no military solution to the conflict and that is why we’re looking at ways and means by which we can help it celebrate the peace negotiations that are ongoing.”
Taliban take much of provincial capital in south Afghanistan
The Taliban pressed ahead with their advances in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, capturing nine out of 10 districts of the Helmand provincial capital, residents and officials said. Afghan government forces launched airstrikes, backed by the U.S., in a desperate effort to defend the city of Lashkar Gah.
The fall of Lashkar Gah would be a major turning point in the offensive the Taliban have waged over the past months as U.S. and NATO forces complete their pullout from the war-torn country. It would also be the first provincial capital captured by the Taliban in years.
Residents of the city, speaking to The Associated Press over the telephone, said the fighting has them trapped, hunkered down inside their homes and unable to step out for basic supplies. They said Taliban fighters were out openly in the streets, and that all but one Lashkar Gah district was under Taliban control.
READ: To reach a peace deal, Taliban say Afghan president must go
Elite commando units were dispatched from Kabul to aid Afghan forces as the government held on to key government buildings, including the local police and army headquarters.
Majid Akhund, deputy chairman of the Helmand provincial council, confirmed that the Taliban control nine Lashkar Gah districts and also the city’s TV and radio station, which had both gone off the air.
The Afghan forces commander for Helmand, Gen. Sami Sadat, in an audio message shared with journalists Tuesday urged residents in neighborhoods captured by the Taliban to evacuate immediately, though he did not clarify how they could do that amid the ongoing clashes. The message was an indication more airstrikes were planned.
“Please evacuate your families from your homes and their surroundings,” Sadat said. “We will not leave the Taliban alive. ... I know it’s hard ... we do it for your future. Forgive us if you get displaced for few days, please evacuate as soon as possible.”
Lashkar Gah is one of three provincial capitals under siege by the Taliban as they stepped up their onslaught against government forces. In recent months the Taliban swept through dozens of districts across the country, many in remote and rural, sparsely populated areas.
Afghan troops in those battles often surrendered or pulled out with barely a fight, frequently lacking re-supplies and reinforcements. Over the past weeks, the Taliban have also captured several lucrative border crossings with Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan.
In the Afghan capital of Kabul on Tuesday scores of people waving the Afghan flag and shouting “God is great” came out to the streets in support of Afghanistan’s National Security and Defense Forces. They came out even as a powerful explosion rattled the city. No one took immediate responsibility.
A similar procession took place in the western city of Herat on Monday after Afghan soldiers pushed the Taliban back from the entrance to the city.
The Taliban have most recently turned their guns on provincial capitals as the withdrawal of the U.S. and NATO forces is now more than 95% complete. The final U.S. and NATO soldier are expected to be out of Afghanistan by Aug. 31.
The two other provincial capitals under siege are in the neighboring province of Kandahar, also in the south, and in western Herat province.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Monday blamed the hasty withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops for the deteriorating security situation, while analysts say deep corruption and poor training has left Afghan forces overwhelmed, leaving the elite commando units as the only bulwark against the advancing Taliban.
READ: Afghan president slams Taliban; rockets target Kabul palace
Afghanistan’s air force has been seriously hurt by the American and NATO withdrawal, which included contractors who had maintained the fleet of fighter aircraft. Washington’s watchdog overseeing U.S. taxpayers dollars spent in Afghanistan said the Afghan aircraft are flying 25% longer than they should before being maintained.
In Herat, the capital of the province by the same name, Afghan forces appeared on Tuesday to be able to push the Taliban back, with the insurgents on the edge of the city. Also, Herat city’s civilian airport re-opened.
The United Nations has repeatedly decried the rise in civilian casualties inflicted by both sides in the increasingly brutal conflict. The U.N. mission in a tweet Tuesday appealed for a quick end to the fighting in heavily populated urban areas. In the last three days, the U.N. said 10 civilians have been killed in Lashkar Gah and 85 were wounded. In southern Kandahar, at least five civilians wee killed and 42 were wounded.
Thousands more have been displaced, sad the U.N. Lashkar Gah residents said airstrikes inside the city were also driving people from their homes.
“With any bomb that hits the city, my 13- year-old son jumps and yells,” said Mohammad Khan, a resident of Lashkar Gah. He had moved half of his family out of the city and was trying to evacuate the other half out before the fighting pinned him down.
Another Lashkar Gah resident, Nizamuddin, who like many Afghans uses only one name, said he was hiding with his family in their home and was too afraid to step out.
The U.S. and other world leaders have warned the Taliban against a military takeover of Afghanistan, saying they would become an international pariah again if they tried to take power by force.
When they last ruled Afghanistan, the Taliban were recognized by only three countries — Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Also Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul tweeted: “The Taliban’s disregard for the dignity of each Afghan citizen and for human life more broadly has shocked the world. This is not how legitimate powers or governments behave.”