Afghan forces battled Taliban fighters in and throughout several cities on Thursday, officials said, as the Taliban carried on with their offensive that U.S. intelligence considers could see them take over the capital, Kabul, in 90 days.
The pace of the Taliban advance – they have captured eight provincial capitals in less than a week’s time and are threatening to get hold of no less than three more – has stirred widespread recriminations of U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops and leave the Afghan government to fight alone.
The Taliban control about two-thirds of Afghanistan, with the last of the U.S.-led international forces, set to depart by the end of the month, and their guerrilla army has waged war on multiple fronts, resulting in thousands of families fleeing the provinces in hope of finding safety in the capital, Kabul.
“Fighting did not stop until 4 a.m. and then after the first prayers it started up again,” said an aid worker in the southern city of Kandahar.
Fighting has been extremely intense in Kandahar city, a doctor based in the southern province said earlier. The city hospital had received scores of bodies of members of the armed forces and some wounded Taliban. The Taliban said they had captured Kandahar’s provincial prison.
The Taliban also said they had captured Ghazni city, 150 km southwest of Kabul. Gunfire could be heard in the background, as Reuters spoke to the provincial governor’s spokesman. He said the Taliban had captured the prison there too.
The Taliban said they had captured airports outside the cities of Kunduz and Sheberghan in the north and Farah in the west, making it even more difficult to supply beleaguered government forces.
The Taliban said they had also captured the provincial headquarters in Lashkargah, the embattled capital of the southern province of Helmand, a hotbed of activity.
Government officials were not immediately available for comment.
Bordering Pakistan, Kandahar and other southern and eastern provinces have for a long been Taliban heartlands but it has been in the north where they have made their biggest gains in recent weeks.
Faizabad city, in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, on Wednesday, became the eighth provincial capital to be captured by the Taliban.
Desperate to stem the Taliban’s advance, President Ashraf Ghani flew to Mazar-i-Sharif to rally old warlords to the defence of the biggest city in the north as Taliban forces closed in.
Ghani spent years sidelining the warlords as he tried to project the authority of his central government over wayward provinces.
President Biden said on Tuesday he did not regret his decision to withdraw and urged Afghan leaders to fight for their homeland.