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The Taliban have captured the provincial capital of Farah in southwestern Afghanistan, the seventh provincial capital the group has seized since Friday.
“This afternoon, the Taliban entered the town of Farah after briefly fighting with the security forces. They captured the governor’s office and the police headquarters, ”Shahla Abubar, member of Farah’s provincial council, told AFP news agency on Tuesday.
Local sources in the southwestern province of Farah also confirmed to Al Jazeera that the group had taken over the eponymous capital of the province.
The Taliban have captured the central prison in the province, according to parliamentarian Abdul Nasri Farahi and provincial council member Shahla Abu Bakr.
Farah is now the second provincial city in southwestern Afghanistan that the group has taken. The Taliban captured the neighboring province of Nimruz on Friday.
The capture of Farah also provides another border crossing to Iran for the group.
Abubar said local security forces had withdrawn to a military base outside the town.
Local police spokesman Farooq Khalid told Anadolu news agency that intense clashes between government forces and Taliban fighters were taking place. He claimed that more than 80 Taliban fighters advancing were killed by security forces.
The Taliban, however, claimed to have reached the city center.
“Two checkpoints were captured near the intelligence and police command center a moment ago … The battle continues and the Mujahedin are advancing,” tweeted Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed.
In a major effort to repel the advance of the Taliban from urban centers, Afghan forces claimed to have killed 361 Taliban fighters in air and ground offensives in the past 24 hours.
The Defense Ministry said operations were carried out in Nangarhar, Kunar, Logar, Paktia, Paktika, Maidan Wardak, Kandahar, Sar-e-Pul, Helmand, Kunduz and Baghlan provinces.
The Taliban captured seven of the country’s 34 provincial capitals in less than a week.
A senior EU official told Reuters news agency on Tuesday that Taliban forces now control 65% of Afghan territory, threaten to take 11 provincial capitals and try to deprive Kabul of its traditional support from national forces in the north.
Generalized conflict
After the capture of Aybak on Monday, the Taliban have now invaded five provincial capitals in the north. They also captured Zaranj, the capital of Nimruz province in the southwest.
On Tuesday, the Taliban claimed they were closing in on Mazar-i-Sharif – the region’s largest city and a pillar of government control over the north – after capturing Sheberghan in the west, and the town of Kunduz. and Taluqan to the east.
Defense ministry spokesman Fawad Aman said Afghan forces had the upper hand.
But the Indian government closed its consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif on Tuesday and urged its diplomats and Indian citizens to take a special return flight.
India, which has invested millions of dollars in development projects across Afghanistan, has now closed all of its consulates, leaving only the embassy in Kabul operational, a government official said.
The Taliban are also now fighting the West-backed government for control of several other cities, including Lashkar Gah in Helmand and Kandahar in the province of the same name.
The group had already conquered large parts of rural Afghanistan since launching a series of offensives in May, coinciding with the start of the final withdrawal of foreign troops.
Violence against Afghan civilians by Taliban fighters “could constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said on Tuesday before calling a return to the peace negotiations in Doha.
Rob McBride of Al Jazeera, from the Afghan capital Kabul, said that, according to an EU report, some 400,000 people have been internally displaced in Afghanistan in recent months.
“Quite a few of them come here for the relative safety of the capital, but they put a strain on resources here,” McBride said.
“The Red Cross says that over the past 10 days, in its clinics, they have treated more than 4,000 people, civilians caught up in this conflict.
The new wave of deadly clashes began last month when, after invading nearly 200 rural districts, the Taliban launched assaults on major cities as they marched on the towns of Herat, Kandahar, Taluqan. and Lashkar Gah, causing panic and concern among millions of civilians.
The United States – which is due to complete a withdrawal of its troops at the end of the month and end its longest war – has all but left the battlefield.
However, Washington’s special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is now in Qatar trying to convince the Taliban to agree to a ceasefire.
Omar Samad, a non-resident member of the Atlantic Council and former spokesperson for the Afghan Foreign Ministry, told Al Jazeera that the Afghan delegation in Kabul and the Taliban delegation met separately on Tuesday with representatives of the main country parties. stakeholders.
“It is expected that this will last another two days,” Samad said, adding that “the resolution must come from the political side”.
“We lost a lot of time; I think a lot of opportunities have been wasted over the past three years, ”Samad said.
“I think there is enough criticism to be shared among all parties not to really push sincerely for a political resolution of the problem when possible. Now it is more difficult.
Ali M Latifi contributed to this report from Kabul, Afghanistan.
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