Taliban seizes 7th Afghan provincial capital in 5 days

The Taliban has captured the provincial capital of Farah in southwest Afghanistan, the seventh provincial capital the group has seized since Friday.

“This afternoon the Taliban entered the city of Farah after briefly fighting with the security forces. They have captured the governor’s office and police headquarters,” Shahla Abubar, a member of Farah’s provincial council, told the AFP news agency on Tuesday.

Local sources in the southwestern province of Farah also confirmed to Al Jazeera that the group has taken over the province’s eponymous capital city.

Farah is now the second provincial city in the southwest of Afghanistan that the group has taken. On Friday, the Taliban captured neighbouring Nimruz province.

The capture of Farah also provides another border crossing into Iran for the group.

A Taliban spokesman posted pictures of fighters walking casually past the gates of the police headquarters and governor’s office.

Abubar said local security forces had retreated towards an army base outside the city.

Local police spokesman Farooq Khalid told Anadolu Agency that intense clashes between government forces and the Taliban fighters were underway. He claimed that over 80 advancing Taliban fighters were killed by security forces.

The Taliban, however, claimed to have reached the city centre.

“Two checkpoints were captured near the intelligence and police command centre a moment ago… The battle continues and the Mujahideen advance,” tweeted Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed.

The Taliban has also captured the province’s central prison, according to parliamentarian Abdul Nasri Farahi and provincial council member Shahla Abu Bakr.

In a major push to repel advancing Taliban from urban centres, the Afghan forces claimed killing 361 Taliban fighters in air and ground offensives in the past 24 hours.

The Defense Ministry said the operations were conducted in the Nangarhar, Kunar, Logar, Paktia, Paktika, Maidan Wardak, Kandahar, Sar-e Pol, Helmand, Kunduz, and Baghlan provinces.

The Taliban has now captured five out of 34 provincial capitals in the country in less than a week.

The Taliban is also closing in on the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, the provincial capital of northern Balkh province.

They are also now battling the Western-backed government for control of several others, including Lashkar Gah in Helmand, and Kandahar and Farah in provinces of the same names.

The Taliban had already gained vast parts of rural Afghanistan since launching a series of offensives in May to coincide with the start of the final withdrawal of foreign troops.

Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride reporting from Kabul said that according to a report by the EU, there have been 400,000 people internally displaced in Afghanistan in recent months.

“Quite a few of them are coming here to the relative safety of capital [Kabul], but putting a large strain on resources here,” McBride said.

“The Red Cross is is saying that in its clinics in the past 10 days, they have been treating more than 4,000 people, civilians caught up in this conflict.”

The new wave of deadly clashes started last month when, after overrunning nearly 200 rural districts, the Taliban began assaults on major cities as they marched on Herat, Kandahar, Taluqan, and Lashkar Gah, causing panic and worry among millions of civilians.

The United States – due to complete a troop withdrawal 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 to try and convince the Taliban to accept a ceasefire.

Source: Al Jazeera