Taliban capture Afghanistan’s third most populous city, US to evacuate embassy | The insurgent force has already under control 12 of the 34 provincial capitals

Taliban seized Afghanistan’s third largest city, Herat on Thursday, continuing with a fierce offensive against which United States announces deployment of three thousand troops to evacuate diplomatic personnel. In the early hours of Friday, insurgents also claimed responsibility for the conquest of the strategic city of Kandahar, which this would leave the government in control of the capital Kabul and a handful of other territories. Faced with the rapid and worrying territorial advance, Afghanistan offered to share power with the Taliban.

Sending troops

In just one week, the Taliban took control of 12 of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals and they surrounded the largest city in the north, Mazar-i-Sharif. As a sign of disaster, US and UK announced deployment of troops to quickly evacuate diplomatic personnel in Kabul.

The Pentagon has said 3,000 troops will be deployed to the Afghan capital within the next 24 to 48 hours, insisting they will not attack the Taliban. “We are going to reduce our civilian presence in Kabul in the face of the evolving security situation”said the spokesman for US diplomacy, Ned Prize. “It is not an abandonment, it is not a complete evacuation, it is not a withdrawal, it is a reduction of our civilian personnel,” said the official.

For its part the British Ministry of Defense has announced the dispatch of 600 soldiers to Afghanistan to help British citizens leave this country in the face of “rapidly deteriorating security” and increased violence. The troops will stay in Afghanistan for a “short period,” the Defense said in a statement, while the British embassy in Kabul has stepped up work to issue visas to workers linked to the delegation.

Fall of Herat

Large city in western Afghanistan, near the border with Iran, Herat fell under Taliban control on Thursday. “We had to leave the city to avoid further destruction,” a security source told AFP, explaining that they had withdrawn to a nearby military base. Taliban “hoisted their flags all over town”, He said Masoom Jan, a resident. “We are really scared, it took us by surprise, we couldn’t even leave the city,” he added.

In the early hours of Friday the Taliban also claimed to have taken Kandahar, the second largest city in Afghanistan. A resident confirmed the capture to AFP, noting that government forces withdrew en masse to a military installation on the outskirts of the city. On Wednesday, the Taliban claimed they had taken control of the prison, freeing hundreds of prisoners.

Shared power

As part of the negotiations aimed at stopping the rapid advance of the insurgents, the Afghan government has offered the Taliban to share power. The president of the High Council for National Reconciliation of Afghanistan, Abdullah Abdullah, who has been in Doha since Wednesday to attend international meetings on the future of the country, was responsible for presenting the plan to Qatari mediators.

The government offered the “Taliban a distribution of power in exchange for an end to the violence,” said one of its negotiators in Doha., where the peace talks between the government and the insurgents that began in September 2020 continue. The UN and countries like Uzbekistan, Germany and the United Kingdom, the parties called for an “immediate cessation violence and hostilities “and reiterated that they do not recognize any regime installed by force in Afghanistan.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has so far rejected the idea of ​​a government including the Taliban. Yes the insurgents, who previously welcomed the idea, may reject it as their offensive has advanced at a breakneck pace in recent days.

The clashes have a terrible toll on the civilian population. In one month, at least 183 civilians, including children, have been killed in Lashkar Gah, Kandahar, Herat and Kunduz, and around 360,000 people have fled their homes since early 2021, according to the UN.. Many civilians have arrived in Kabul in recent days, where, still traumatized by the atrocities committed by the Taliban before their eyes, they are trying to survive in refugee camps.

International troops will complete their departure from Afghanistan at the end of this month, twenty years after the start of their intervention to expel the Taliban from power after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. The US military has made no secret of its frustration over the weakness of the Afghan army in recent days, which the United States has been training, funding, and equipping for years.