Afghan city turned into ‘ghost town’ by battles
KABUL — Hundreds of people have fled after four days of fierce fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban in the key provincial capital of Ghazni. The fighting has killed about 120 security forces and civilians, the defence minister and witnesses said Monday.
Nearly 200 insurgents, many of them foreigners, have been killed, the government said.
Between the civilians who have left the city and those too fearful to venture from their homes into the streets, “Ghazni has become a ghost town,” said Ghulam Mustafa, 60, who made it to neighbouring Maidan Wardak province with 14 of his relatives.
The Taliban’s multipronged assault, which began Friday, overwhelmed Ghazni’s defences and allowed insurgents to capture several parts of it in a major show of force. The Taliban pushed deep into the strategic city about 120 kilometres (75 miles) from the capital, Kabul.
The United States has carried out airstrikes and sent military advisers to aid Afghan forces in the city of 270,000 people. The fall of Ghazniwould be an important victory for the Taliban. The city is located on Highway One, a key route linking Kabul to the southern provinces, the insurgents’ traditional heartland.
A spokesperson for the U.S. military, Lt. Col. Martin O’Donnell, said the city “remains under Afghan government control, and the isolated and disparate Taliban forces remaining in the city do not pose a threat to its collapse, as some have claimed.”
Afghan authorities insist the city will not fall to the Taliban and that Afghan forces are in control of key government positions and other institutions.
“The Taliban have failed in reaching their goal,” said Col. Fared Mashal, the provincial police chief.
Gen. Tareq Shah Bahrami, Afghanistan’s defence minister, said about 100 Afghan police and army and 20 civilians have been killed in Ghazni, the first official casualty toll released by the government since the Taliban launched the massive assault.
About 1,000 additional troops were sent to Ghazni, Bahrami said. He added that 194 insurgents. Among the dead were fighters from Pakistan, southern Russia’s region of Chechnya and various Arab countries.