Time.news – The Taliban have conquered the city of Faizabad in northern Afghanistan, the ninth provincial capital to fall into the hands of the insurgents in less than a week. Also in the north, in Kunduz, hundreds of Afghan security forces who had barricaded themselves near the airport after the city fell over the weekend surrendered.
The Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, flew into the besieged northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif to rally his besieged forces, with militiamen conquering more than a quarter of the country’s provincial capitals in less than a week: 9 out of 34 cities. Ghani arrived in Mazar as the Taliban took control of Faizabad during the night, the ninth capital invaded since last Friday.
The president, according to a note released by the palace, intends to “control general security in the northern area”. The Afghan leader is also expected to hold talks with Mazar’s longtime strongman, Atta Mohammad Noor, and the warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, for the defense of the city, while the Taliban fighters approach the periphery.
The loss of Mazar would be a catastrophic blow to the Kabul government and would represent the complete collapse of its control over the north – long a bastion of anti-Taliban militias.
Hours before Ghani’s arrival, images posted on the government’s official social media showed Dostum boarding a plane in Kabul, along with a contingent of commandos, en route to Mazar.
Fighting in Afghanistan’s long-running conflict has intensified dramatically since May, when the US-led military coalition began the final phase of a withdrawal that is expected to be completed by the end of the month.
And according to sources from the Biden administration interviewed by the Washington Post, thirty days, maximum ninety, is the time it would take for the Taliban to conquer Kabul. The sources of the newspaper, who wished to remain anonymous, argue that the situation is much more compromised than was believed last June, when intelligence predicted that the fall of Kabul could take place within six months of the withdrawal of the American troops.
“Everything is moving in the wrong direction,” said an official familiar with the new intelligence report. The Taliban offensive has forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee their homes across the country and to suffer numerous atrocities. “When there are two girls in a family, they take one to get married, when there are two boys, they take one to fight,” Marwan, a young widow who fled from Taloqan, in a refugee park in Kabul told France Press. .
Abdulmanan, a displaced person from Kunduz, said he saw the Taliban behead one of his children, without knowing “if his body was eaten by dogs or buried”. About 359.000 people have been displaced to Afghanistan by fighting since the beginning of the year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
At least 183 civilians were killed and 1,181 injured, including children, in one month in the cities of Lashkar Gah, Kandahar, Herat (west) and Kunduz, the UN said, adding that these were the only victims that could be documented.
The Taliban launched this offensive in May, at the beginning of the final withdrawal of American and foreign forces, but their advance has accelerated in recent days with the capture of several urban centers. The withdrawal of the international forces must be completed by 31 August, 20 years after their intervention following the attacks of 11 September 2001 against the United States.
“I have no regrets about my decision to leave Afghanistan,” said US President Joe Biden. Afghans “must have the will to fight” and “must fight for themselves, for their nation”. Washington is increasingly frustrated by the weakness of the Kabul army, which the Americans have trained, financed and equipped for years.
US diplomat spokesman Ned Price said government forces were “vastly superior in number” to the Taliban and had “the potential to inflict greater casualties”.
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