Closer to Kabul, the Taliban control 26 provincial capitals in Afghanistan

The Taliban captured the eastern city of Jalalabad on Sunday, a day after taking northern Mazar-i-Sharif, leaving the isolated capital Kabul as the only major city under the control of the Afghan government.

With the fall of Jalalabad and Mazar-i-Sharif, which was an anti-Taliban stronghold, the insurgents control almost the whole country, after 10 days of accelerated conquests against government forces and local leaders.

“We woke up this morning with the white Taliban flags flying all over town. They entered without a fight, ”said Ahmad Wali, a villager from Jalalabad. which thus confirmed the version disseminated by the insurgents on their social networks.

A few hours before the capture of Mazar-i-Sharif, the Disturbed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani sought authority with message to country in which he spoke of “re-mobilizing” the military while seeking a “political solution” to the crisis.

Corn latest defeats dealt a severe blow to Ghani and his government, leaving Taliban with fighters within an hour of Kabul and in control of all the letters of a negotiation on the surrender of the capital.

The american president Joe Biden ordered the dispatch of a thousand additional troops to help ensure the evacuation. emergency of embassy employees and thousands of Afghans who work with US forces and fear reprisals.

They join the 3,000 American soldiers sent in recent days and the remaining 1,000 since Biden announced in May the final withdrawal of the 20-year military presence in Afghanistan, which is expected to be completed on September 11.

His decision was called into question following the collapse of the Afghan army, but Biden said on Saturday he had no other option.

“I was the fourth president to preside over the presence of American troops in Afghanistan: two Republicans, two Democrats. I wouldn’t want to reduce this war to a fifth and I won’t, ”Biden said.

STRONG FIGHTS

The Taliban quickly took control of Mazar-i-Sharif.

“They march in their vehicles and motorcycles, firing shots in the air”, said Atiqullah Ghayor, who lives near the city’s famous Blue Mosque.

Warlords Abdul Rashid Dostum and Atta Mohammad Noor, who led a resistance militia in the city in support of government forces, fled to Uzbekistan, about 30 km to the north, said a close friend of Noor.

Noor later tweeted that they had been betrayed by the military and that they were in a “safe place”.

As the Taliban tightened their seat on the capital, frightened villagers formed long lines in front of banks waiting to withdraw their savings, and some offices ran out of cash.

Residents near Pul-e-Charkhi prison on the outskirts of Kabul said AFP What they heard gunshots inside the prison, maybe because of a riot.

In his first message to the country since the Taliban advanced, Ghani said he intended to curb the violence. “I will not let the war imposed on the people cause more deaths,” he said with a grim face.

Ghani said that the armed forces would be “remobilized” and that consultations were underway to stop the fighting, although he did not provide more details.

The presidential palace He later reported that “a delegation with authority must be appointed by the government for negotiation.”

TERROR DAY AND NIGHT

To the people of Kabul and the tens of thousands who have sought refuge in recent weeks, the dominant feeling was apprehension and fear.

Muzhda, a 35-year-old single woman who arrived in the capital with her two sisters after fleeing neighboring Parwan, she said she was terrified. “I cry day and night. If the Taliban come and force me to marry, I will kill myself, ”he told the AFP.

The Taliban They imposed a strict version of Islam when they ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

The scale and speed of their advances amazed the Afghans and the US-led alliance., who invested billions of dollars in the country after overthrowing insurgents after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Afghan soldiers, units and entire divisions surrendered and delivered more vehicles and military equipment to the Taliban for their offensive.

Biden warned on Saturday that if the insurgents attempted to disrupt the US evacuation, they would encounter a “swift and strong US military response.”

The Taliban offensive accelerated the last days with the capture of Herat, in the north, and Kandahar, the spiritual heart of the southern group.

Asadabad, the capital of Kunar in the east, and Gardez, were also taken on the Saturday before Mazar-i-Sharif.

After Ghani’s speech, analyst Sayed Naser Mosawi said the president appeared “ready to make some sort of arrangement that does not involve surrender.”

(With information from AFP)

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