Status: 08/12/2021 8:08 pm
According to consistent media reports, the Afghan city of Herat has been captured by the Taliban. Given the rapid advance, US intelligence agencies expect the capital Kabul to fall in 30 days.
The third largest city in Afghanistan has apparently fallen to the militant Islamist Taliban. The most important government institutions of Herat in the west of the country are in the hands of the Islamists, confirmed three local officials of the news agency dpa. According to information from the AFP news agency, the extremists took, among other things, the police headquarters and hoisted their flag on the roof.
The strategically important city of Ghazni in the southeast fell only in the morning. The second largest city, Kandahar, is also fiercely contested. The fall of the historic city of Herat, with an estimated 600,000 inhabitants, was preceded by weeks of attacks. The Taliban were initially kept in check by the security forces and militias of the local politician and former warlord Ismail Chan, and in some cases were also pushed back.
Taliban release prisoners
Provincial councils had reported increasing fighting in Herat since the afternoon. The Taliban had advanced into the city from the east and reached the governor’s seat up to 200 meters. Ismail Chan’s militias had been busy repelling an attack by the Islamists in the west of the city. They have also advanced from the north, said another provincial council.
In the evening, the governor’s palace, police headquarters and prison were finally under the control of the Taliban. As in other cities they had conquered, the Islamists released the prisoners.
Spread horror with selfies
The security forces did not fight, said the provincial councilor Ghulam Habib Haschimi. Only the forces recently gathered by Ismail Chan would have resisted the takeover of the city, Haschimi said. The governor and other officials had withdrawn to a military base near the airport. It is not yet clear where Ismail Chan is, who, as one of the leaders of the Northern Alliance, helped the US to drive out the Taliban in 2001.
In the past few weeks, according to local officials, the Taliban had repeatedly invaded the city for brief attacks and then withdrew immediately. With this and with selfies of themselves in the city on social media, they had spread terror among the citizens, said the spokesman for the governor of the province of Herat.
Kabul could fall in 30 days
With Herat, 11 of the 34 provincial capitals fell to the Islamists in less than a week. Most of it is in the north of the country. Ghazni is the closest of all the fallen cities to Kabul.
Since the US and NATO troop withdrawal began in early May, the Taliban have made massive territorial gains. From 1996 until the US-led intervention in 2001, the Islamists controlled large parts of Afghanistan. The withdrawal is now more than 95 percent complete. The German Bundeswehr and soldiers from other NATO countries have also already left Afghanistan.
In view of the rapid conquest by the Taliban, US secret services expect, according to the Washington Post, that the capital Kabul could fall into the hands of the Islamists in 30 to 90 days. US President Joe Biden defended the withdrawal of the US military on Tuesday. The Afghans now have to “fight for their own state,” he said in the White House.