Taliban takes cities throughout Afghanistan as U.S. prepares last withdrawal

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Taliban seizes cities across Afghanistan as U.S. readies final withdrawal

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KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban on Monday had actually taken control of a minimum of 4 provincial capitals in Afghanistan, as the militants continued in their offensive while American forces completed their pullout from the war-torn nation.

The fighters caught Sar-e Pul, in Sar-e Pul province in northern Afghanistan and Taleqan, in the northeastern province of Takhar on Sunday.

Abdullah Bek, a legislator from Takhar Province, stated Afghan security forces and militias had actually protected Taleqan city for 60 days prior to they needed to quit and retreat. The city is now in the hands of the Taliban.

Hassan Sharifi, a legislator from Sar-e Pul province, informed NBC News that Sar-e Pul city had actually fallen which just one district stayed in the federal government’s hands in the province.

Afghans check harmed stores after combating in between Taliban and Afghan security forces in Kunduz city on Sunday. Abdullah Sahil / AP

The gains include 2 more provincial capitals to the Taliban’s quickly growing list as U.S. forces finish their withdrawal. The group caught its very first provincial capital Friday in Nimroz Province.

On Saturday, the insurgent fighters declared control of Sheberghan, the capital of the northern Jawzjan province, and a provincial legislator informed The AP that fighters had actually gone into the capital. NBC News has not separately verified that the city has actually fallen.

The next day Taliban fighters caught the city of Kunduz, a significant Afghan business center.

It stays uncertain for how long the group would have the ability to keep control of its city gains. Mirwais Stanekzai, a representative for Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry stated Monday that Afghan forces were still combating to protect Kunduz, Sheberghan and Sar-e-Pul cities. He stated Afghan security forces had actually made “good achievements” in Kunduz city.

The fast fall of provincial capitals deals a heavy blow to the collapsing Afghan federal government forces who have actually struggled to include the Taliban’s raving offending as U.S. and NATO soldiers withdraw from the nation.

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The Taliban just recently began laying siege to provincial capitals after taking rural administrative districts. The capitals it declares to have actually caught considering that Friday stretch from the northeast of the nation, round anti-clockwise to the southwest beside the border with Iran.

The insurgents’ offensive has actually driven countless individuals from their houses to look for sanctuary, from both the battling and the possibility of the Islamist program that ruled the nation prior to 2001 being re-imposed. While in power the Taliban implemented a hardline variation of Islam, and females’s lives in specific were strictly managed.

As the Taliban turn their sights towards Afghan cities there have actually likewise been reports of assassination efforts of federal government authorities in the capital, Kabul. On Saturday, the U.S. and British embassies in Kabul duplicated an alerting to residents still there to leave “immediately” as the security circumstance weakened.

A State Department representative condemned the Taliban offensive Sunday however stated Afghan requires far surpass the militants which the U.S. would continue to support federal government forces.

The U.S. fell the Taliban federal government in 2001 after the group protected Osama bin Laden, the designer behind the 9/11 attacks that activated the U.S. intrusion of Afghanistan and America’s longest war.

Biden stated last month that the U.S. military objective in the nation will conclude Aug. 31, earlier than at first revealed. The dispute has actually cost the lives of around 2,300 U.S. soldiers. From 2001 to 2018, some 58,000 Afghan military and authorities were eliminated in the violence, according to a research study by Brown University.

Between 2009, when the United Nations started recording the effect of the war on civilians, and 2019, about 28 civilians have actually been eliminated or hurt every day — more than 100,000 casualties.

Saphora Smith reported from London. Ahmed Mengli reported from London.

Mushtaq Yusufzai contributed.