A military advance in the country. The Taliban were in possession of five of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals on Monday morning, after having taken three the day before, including the large city of Kunduz, in a large offensive that the army seems unable to stop.
A few hours apart on Sunday, the insurgents, after intense fighting, took possession of Kunduz, which they had surrounded for a few weeks. They then took Sar-e-Pul, then, at the end of the day, Taloqan, the capitals of the provinces located to the south and east of Kunduz.
Officials and security forces fled the city
According to Zabihullah Hamidi, a resident of Taloqan, the capital of Takhar province, contacted by AFP, the violence began in the morning and the Taliban ended up taking the city “without much fighting”, officials and officials said. the security forces having fled the city. A security official confirmed the flight of Afghan forces and local leaders to a nearby district. “The government failed to send us aid and we withdrew from the city this afternoon,” he said.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the Taliban, confirmed the capture of Taloqan, assuring that “security has been restored”, as well as of Kunduz and Sar-e-pul, who fell in the morning. The Taliban have taken control of all key buildings in the city, an AFP correspondent in Kunduz noted.
The capture of Kunduz has been the main military success of the Taliban since the start in May of the offensive they launched with the withdrawal of international forces, which must be fully completed by August 31.
Nerve center
At the end of June, the Taliban seized the Shir Khan Bandar border post in southern Tajikistan, a key axis for economic relations with Central Asia. The defense ministry said government troops were trying to retake key areas of Kunduz. “The commandos have launched a cleanup operation. Some places, including the national radio and television buildings, have been cleared, ”he said.
“The capture of Kunduz is really important because it will free a large number of Taliban fighters who can then be mobilized in other places in the north” of Afghanistan, Ibraheem Thurial Bahiss, a consultant to AFP, told AFP. ‘International Crisis Group (ICG).
After Kunduz, Sar-e-Pul also fell into the hands of the Taliban. They had already seized Saturday, further north, of Sheberghan, the stronghold of the famous warlord Abdul Rashid Dostom.
Speed of advance
The inability of the authorities in Kabul to hold the north of the country could prove crucial to the government’s chances of survival. Northern Afghanistan has always been considered a stronghold against the Taliban. It was there that they encountered the strongest resistance when they came to power in the 1990s.
The Taliban ruled the country between 1996 and 2001, imposing their ultra-rigorous version of Islamic law, before being ousted by an international coalition led by the United States. On Friday, the insurgents also seized the city of Zaranj, the capital of the province of Nimroz (south), on the border with Iran.
Kandahar (south) and Herat (west), the second and third Afghan cities, have also been subjected to their assaults for several days, as has Lashkar Gah (south), the capital of Helmand province, one of the strongholds of the insurgents. The speed of the Taliban advance took by surprise the observers but also the Afghan security forces, despite the help received from the US Air Force.