A Taliban fighter stands guard at the entrance of the police headquarters in Ghazni on Aug 12, 2021, as Taliban move closer to Afghan capital after taking Ghazni city. (PHOTO / AFP)
KABUL/GENEVA/LONDON/BERLIN – Taliban insurgents tightened their grip on Afghanistan on Friday, wresting control of its second and third biggest cities while Western embassies prepared to send in troops to help evacuate staff from the capital, Kabul.
The capture of the second-biggest city of Kandahar in the south and Herat in the west after days of clashes are a devastating setback for the government as the deadly Taliban insurgency turns into a rout of the security forces.
"The city looks like a front line, a ghost town," provincial council member Ghulam Habib Hashimi said by telephone from Herat, a city of about 600,000 people near the border with Iran.
"Families have either left or are hiding in their homes."
The Taliban also detained veteran militia commander Mohammad Ismail Khan on Friday after they seized Herat, provincial council member Ghulam Habib Hashimi said
Hashimi said the Taliban also detained veteran militia commander Mohammad Ismail Khan on Friday after they seized Herat.
Khan, the most prominent militia commander and believed to be in his 70s, together with the provincial governor and security officials, were handed over to the Taliban under an agreement, Hashimi told Reuters. He had no details of the deal.
Meanwhile, a government official said Kandahar, the economic hub of the south, was under Taliban control.
The defeats have fuelled fears the US-backed government could fall to the insurgents as international forces complete their withdrawal after 20 years of war.
A senior US defense official said there was concern that the Taliban could make a move on Kabul in days, but Washington was hoping the Afghan security forces would put up more resistance as the insurgents move closer to the capital.
Afghan First Vice-President Amrullah Saleh said he was proud of the country's armed forces.
"It was decided with conviction & resolve that WE STAND FIRM AGAINST TALIBAN TERRORISTS & DO EVERTYHING TO STRENGTHEN THE NATIONAL RESISTANCE BY ALL MEANS AND WAYS. PERIOD," he tweeted about a national security meeting chaired by President Ashraf Ghani. "We are proud of our (armed forces)."
The fighting has also raised fears of a refugee crisis and a rollback of gains in human rights. Some 400,000 civilians have been forced from their homes since the beginning of the year, 250,000 of them since May, a UN official said.
"The situation has all the hallmarks of a humanitarian catastrophe," the UN World Food Programme's Thomson Phiri said at a briefing, adding that the agency was concerned about a "larger tide of hunger".
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Of Afghanistan's major cities, the government also still holds Mazar-i-Sharif in the north and Jalalabad, near the Pakistani border in the east.
In response to the Taliban advances, the Pentagon said it would send about 3,000 extra troops within 48 hours to help evacuate US embassy staff.
Britain said it would deploy about 600 troops to help its citizens leave while other embassies and aid groups said they too were getting their people out.
Canada would also deploy special forces troops to Kabul to help in the evacuation of embassy staff, the AP reported.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said on Friday that the country must forgo bureaucracy to enable local staff who worked for its military in Afghanistan to leave the country quickly.
In response to the Taliban advances, the Pentagon said it would send about 3,000 extra troops within 48 hours to help evacuate US embassy staff
The Taliban could isolate Kabul within 30 days and take it over in 90, US intelligence assessments concluded this week.
The United Nations has warned that a Taliban offensive reaching the capital would have a "catastrophic impact on civilians" but there is little hope for negotiations to end the fighting with the Taliban apparently set on a military victory.
The UN refugee agency called on Afghanistan's neighbours to keep borders open as Taliban insurgent advances heightened the country's crisis.
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This AFP graphic dated Aug 12, 2021 shows the map locating parts of Afghanistan under government control and territories under the influence of the Taliban, from April 2021 to August 2021.
The Taliban also captured the towns of Lashkar Gah in the south and Qala-e-Naw in the northwest, security officers said on Friday. Firuz Koh, capital of central Ghor province, was handed over without a fight, officials said.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, wrote on his social media account that they have captured Tirin Kot, capital of southern Uruzgan province, Xinhua reports. He also said most parts of Pul-e-Alam, capital of eastern Logar province, has fallen to Taliban, adding that clashes continued at an intelligence agency office and two army bases at midday on Friday.
Earlier in the day, the Afghan defense ministry said in a statement that at least 21 Taliban members were killed following an airstrike on the outskirts of Pul-e-Alam, according to Xinhua.
The militants, fighting to defeat the government and impose their strict version of Islamic rule, have taken control of 14 of Afghanistan's 34 provincial capitals since Aug 6.
Heavy blow
The speed of the offensive, as US-led foreign forces prepare to complete their withdrawal by the end of this month, has sparked recriminations among many Afghans over President Joe Biden's decision to withdraw US troops, 20 years after they ousted the Taliban in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
The loss of the economic hub of Kandahar will be a heavy blow to the government. It is the heartland of the Taliban, ethnic Pashtun fighters who emerged in the province in 1994 amid the chaos of civil war to sweep through most of the rest of the country over the next two years
Biden said this week he did not regret his decision, noting Washington has spent more than US$1 trillion in America's longest war and lost thousands of troops.
The loss of the economic hub of Kandahar will be a heavy blow to the government. It is the heartland of the Taliban, ethnic Pashtun fighters who emerged in the province in 1994 amid the chaos of civil war to sweep through most of the rest of the country over the next two years.
Government forces still controlled Kandahar's airport, which was the US military's second biggest base in Afghanistan during their 20-year mission, an official said.
Lashkar Gah is the capital of the southern opium-growing province of Helmand, where British, US and other foreign forces battled the insurgents for years.
ALSO READ: Taliban take provincial capital, kill Afghan govt spokesman
The US State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday and told him the United States "remains invested in the security and stability of Afghanistan". They also said the United States was committed to supporting a political solution.
Taliban fighters patrol inside the city of Ghazni, southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan on Aug 12, 2021. (GULABUDDIN AMIRI / AP)
US Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the exit strategy was sending the United States "hurtling toward an even worse sequel to the humiliating fall of Saigon in 1975," urging Biden to commit to providing more support to Afghan forces.
"Without it, al Qaeda and the Taliban may celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks by burning down our Embassy in Kabul."
Britain's Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said Afghanistan was spiralling into a failed state and a civil war in which militant groups such as al Qaeda will thrive and likely pose a threat again to the West.
"I think we are heading towards a civil war," Wallace told the BBC.
In the deal struck with former US president Donald Trump's administration last year, the Taliban agreed not to attack US-led foreign forces as they withdrew.
They also made a commitment to discuss peace but intermittent meetings with government representatives have gone nowhere. International envoys to Afghan negotiations in Qatar called for an accelerated peace process as a "matter of great urgency" and for a halt to attacks on cities.
In this picture taken on Aug 13, 2021, a Taliban fighter holds a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) along the roadside in Herat, Afghanistan's third biggest city, after government forces pulled out the day before following weeks of being under siege. (PHOTO / AFP)
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said this week the Taliban had refused to negotiate unless Ghani resigned from the presidency.
Pakistan officially denies backing the Taliban but it has been an open secret that Taliban leaders live in Pakistan and recruit fighters from a network of religious schools in Pakistan.
Pakistan's military has long seen the Taliban as the best option to block the influence of arch rival India in Afghanistan.
READ MORE: Taliban tighten grip on Afghan north as residents weigh options
Afghans, including many who have come of age enjoying freedoms since the Taliban were ousted, have vented their anger on social media, tagging posts #sanctionpakistan but there has been little criticism from Western capitals of Pakistan's role.
Wtih Xinhua inputs