The US said it had been up to Afghan security forces to defend the country after Taliban militants captured a sixth capital on Monday, along side border towns and trade routes.
President Joe Biden has said the US mission in Afghanistan will endways August 31, arguing that the Afghan people must decide their own future which he wouldn’t consign another generation of citizens to the 20-year war.
US envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad has left for Qatar where he will “press the Taliban to prevent their military offensive and to barter a political settlement”, the State Department said on Monday.
In talks over three days, representatives from governments and multilateral organisations will press for “a reduction of violence and ceasefire and a commitment to not recognise a government imposed by force”, the State Department said.
The Afghan Taliban, fighting to reimpose their rule after their 2001 ouster, have stepped up their campaign to defeat the govt as foreign forces withdraw.
On Monday, they took Aybak, capital of the northern province of Samangan.
“Right now the Taliban are fighting with Afghan forces to capture the police station and compound of the provincial governor,” said Ziauddin Zia, a lawmaker in Aybak.
“Several parts of the capital have fallen to the Taliban.”
The insurgents took three provincial capitals over the weekend — Zaranj within the southern province of Nimroz, Sar-e-Pul, within the northern province of an equivalent name, and Taloqan, in northeastern Takhar province.
They had already taken the northern capital of Kunduz and Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the us was deeply concerned about the trend but that Afghan security forces had the potential to fight the insurgent group.
“These are their military forces, these are their provincial capitals, their people to defend and it’s really getting to come right down to the leadership that they are willing to exude here at this particular moment,” Kirby said.
Asked what the US military can do if the Afghan security forces aren’t putting up a fight, Kirby said: “Not much.”
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while the military had warned Biden earlier this year that provincial capitals would fall with a withdrawal of troops, they were still surprised at how quickly a number of them were being taken by the Taliban.
The us administered but a dozen strikes over the weekend because the Taliban overran the provincial capitals, in one instance simply destroying equipment.
One official said the Afghan forces didn’t invite any support as Kunduz was being overtaken.
Recriminations
The Taliban gains have sparked recriminations over the withdrawal of foreign forces. British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told the Daily Mail that the accord struck last year between the us and therefore the Taliban was a “rotten deal”.
Washington agreed to withdraw during a deal negotiated last year under Biden’s Republican predecessor, Donald Trump.
Wallace said his government had asked some Nato allies to stay their troops in Afghanistan once the US troops departed, but did not garner enough support.
“Some said they were keen, but their parliaments weren’t. It became apparent pretty quickly that without the us because the framework nation it had been, these options were closed off,” Wallace said.
Germany’s defence minister rejected involves its soldiers to return to Afghanistan after Taliban insurgents took Kunduz where German troops were deployed for a decade.
Afghan commandoes had launched a counterattack to undertake to keep off Taliban fighters who overran Kunduz, with residents fleeing the conflict describing the just about constant sound of gunfire and explosions.
In the west, near the border with Iran, security officials said heavy fighting was underway on the outskirts of Herat. Arif Jalali, head of Herat Zonal Hospital, said 36 people had been killed and 220 wounded over the past 11 days. quite half the wounded were civilians.
Unicef said 20 children were killed which 130 children had been injured in southern Kandahar province within the past 72 hours.
“The atrocities grow higher by the day,” said Hervé Ludovic De Lys, Unicef’s representative in Afghanistan.
Families flee
In Kunduz, many desperate families, some with young children and pregnant women, abandoned their homes, hoping to succeed in the relative safety of Kabul, 315 kilometres to the south — a drive that might normally take around 10 hours.
Ghulam Rasool, an engineer, was trying to rent a bus to urge his family to the capital because the sound of gunfire reverberated through the streets of his hometown.
“We may be forced to steer till Kabul, but we aren’t sure if we might be killed on the way. […] Ground clashes weren’t just stopping even for 10 minutes,” Rasool told Reuters.
He and a number of other other residents, and a security official, said Afghan commandoes had launched an operation to clear the insurgents from Kunduz.
In Kabul itself, suspected Taliban fighters killed an Afghan station manager, officialdom said, the newest during a long line of attacks targeting media workers.
Thousands were trying to enter Kabul, even after the town has witnessed attacks in diplomatic districts.
Speaking to Al Jazeera TV on Sunday, Taliban spokesman Muhammad Naeem Wardak warned the us against further intervention to support government forces.
