The Taliban continue their inexorable advance and consolidate their position in northern Afghanistan. A few hours apart, the insurgents, after heavy fighting, took possession of most of the large town of Kunduz, 300 kilometers north of Kabul, which they had surrounded for a few weeks, and of Sar-e. -Pul, 400 kilometers further west. They also captured the town of Taloqan, in the northeast of the country.
In Kunduz, Ghulam Rabani Rabani, a member of the provincial council, told the Associated Press (AP) that the Taliban seized the offices of the governor and the police after fighting with government forces. The insurgents also control the main prison building in the city, he added. According to Mr. Rabani, the fighting is still ongoing at Kunduz airport. Another provincial councilor, Mohammad Yusouf Ayubi, assured that the Afghan forces only controlled this airport and army premises.
“The Taliban have taken control of all the key buildings in the city”, confirmed a correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP). “It’s total chaos”, To describe Abdul Aziz, a resident contacted by phone by AFP, according to whom ” the Taliban have reached the central plaza of Kunduz; they are bombarded by the air force ”. The defense ministry said government troops were trying to take back key areas of Kunduz: “The commando forces have launched a clean-up operation. Some places, including the national radio and the television buildings, have been cleared ”.
“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”, told AFP Ibraheem Thurial Bahiss, consultant of the International Crisis Group (ICG).
Kabul’s inability to hold the north of the country
The city of 270,000 inhabitants, already fallen twice in recent years at the hands of the insurgents, in 2015 and 2016, is a strategic crossroads in northern Afghanistan, between Kabul and Tajikistan. At the end of June, the Taliban had taken control of the districts surrounding Kunduz and of the important border post of Shir Khan Bandar, border of Tajikistan, a nerve center for economic relations with Central Asia.
The capture of Kunduz would be the main military success of the Taliban since the start of their offensive in May, launched in favor of the withdrawal of international forces, which must be fully completed by August 31. After having seized vast rural territories without meeting much resistance, they concentrate their efforts since the beginning of August on the big cities, encircling several provincial capitals.
Sar-e-Pul, 600 kilometers west of Kabul, fell to the Taliban. They had already seized, on Saturday, Sheberghan, 50 kilometers further north, the stronghold of the famous warlord Abdul Rashid Dostom. “The Taliban surrounded an army battalion on the outskirts of town. All other parts of the city are under Taliban control ”said Mohammad Hussein Mujahidzada, a board member from Sar-e-Pul province.
The Taliban also took the town of Taloqan on Sunday. “The government failed to send us aid and we withdrew from the city this afternoon”, said a security official, while a resident reported that “The Taliban are everywhere”.
Kabul’s inability to hold the north of the country could prove crucial to the government’s chances of survival. Northern Afghanistan has always been seen as an anti-Taliban stronghold, where resistance to them was stronger when they came to power in the 1990s.
Assaults on several cities
Friday, the insurgents had also seized, without meeting the slightest resistance, the city of Zaranj, capital of the distant province of Nimroz (southwest), on the border with Iran. Kandahar (south) and Herat (west), the second and third largest cities in the country, have also been subjected to their assault for several days, as has Lashkar Gah (south), 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, which notably bombed the Taliban positions on Saturday in Sheberghan.
The United States has stepped up its airstrikes, admitted Commander Nicole Ferrara, spokesman for the United States Army Central Command, who said on Saturday: “The American forces have carried out several airstrikes in recent days to defend our Afghan partners. “
The Afghan government has not reacted to the loss of these provincial capitals, except to commit to taking them back quickly. But he had made the same promise for the many rural districts and border posts fallen since May, to no tangible result.