On Saturday, the Taliban captured Sheberghan, the capital of the Northwestern province of Jawzjan. Sheberghan is the second regional capital to fall to the Taliban in the past 24 hours.
Karim Jawzjani, the MP for Jawzjan province said in the house of the national parliament, “Sheberghan, the provincial capital, has fallen. The capital is now in the hands of the insurgents.”
According to him, “only the Army Regiment is under the control of the security forces and the rest of the city is in the hands of the insurgents.”
The city fell into the control of Taliban after several days of fighting.
As per a report by the news agency EFE, another member of the Jawzjan Provincial Council, Bismillah Sahel, also confirmed that “Sheberghan town fell into the hands of the insurgents for now, almost all parts of the town are in the hands of the Taliban.”
Earlier, the senior Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid had made an announcement on his official Twitter account.
“The strategic capital of Jawzjan, Sheberghan, has been liberated by the mujahideen,” he had said.
The spokesman had also said that, according to the first available information, police and intelligence headquarters and “all related buildings” were now under Taliban control.
On Friday, the Taliban had claimed control of the city of Zaranj, capital of the Southwestern province of Nimroz. It was the first province to fall to the Taliban since the start of the US withdrawal in the month of May.
“Nimroz has become the first province to be completely liberated from the mujahedeen,” Mujahid said of the region bordering Iran.
Although it has not yet been officially confirmed by the Afghan government, the MPs such as Ahmad Noorzad told local media Ariana News that the insurgents had captured key government compounds including the governor’s office, police headquarters and the prison.
An Afghan media platform, Tolo News had also reported without disclosing the source that the Taliban’s fall of Zaranj was accompanied by the flight of “hundreds of the city’s residents, who flocked to the Iranian border in a desperate search for safety”.
The foreign troops withdrawal had begun in the month of May and the president of the U.S. Biden had announced that it would end towards the end of August
Since the withdrawal began, the Taliban has been able to get hold of some 125 district centres. It happens to be the first time in the past two decades of war that they were able to gain control of so many areas in such short notice.