Taliban take Ghazni on oad to Kabul
Han capital is next ine for onrushing urgents as latest to fall into their ds is only 150km ay from Kabul
The Taliban seized the egic Afghan city of Ghazni hursday, just 150km from l, their most important gain ightning offensive that has them overrun 10 provincial als in a week. e interior ministry coned the fall of the city, which long the major Kabul-kanr highway and serves as a way between the capital and tant strongholds in the h. “The enemy took control,” esman Mirwais Stanikzai in a message to media, addater the city’s governor had arrested by Afghan security s. o-taliban Twitter feeds wed video of him being rted out of Ghazni by Taliighters and sent on his way onvoy, prompting speculain the capital that the govent was angered with how provincial administration ulated. security forces retreated ss the country, Kabul ed a proposal to Taliban tiators in Qatar offering a er-sharing deal in return for d to fighting, according to a ber of the government’s in Doha who asked not to amed. second negotiator, Ghulam oq Majroh, said the Taliban had been given an offer about a “government of peace” without providing more specifics.
Authorities in Kabul have now effectively lost most of northern and western Afghanistan and are left holding a scattered bunch of contested cities also dangerously at risk of falling to the Taliban.
The conflict has escalated dramatically since May, when Us-led forces began the final stage of a troop withdrawal due to end later this month following a 20-year occupation.
Pressure on airforce
The loss of Ghazni will likely pile more pressure on the country’s already overstretched airforce, needed to bolster Afghanistan’s dispersed security forces who have increasingly been cut off from reinforcements by road.
Pro-taliban social media accounts also boasted of the vast spoils of war their fighters had recovered in recent days, posting photos of armoured vehicles, heavy weapons, and even a drone seized by the insurgents at abandoned Afghan military bases.
In less than a week the insurgents have taken 10 provincial capitals and encircled the biggest city in the north, the traditional anti-taliban bastion of Mazar-i-sharif.
Kandahar simmers
Fighting was also raging in Kandahar and Lashkar Gar - pro-taliban heartlands in the south - as well as Herat in the west. An official in Lashkar Gah said Taliban fighters were inching closer to government positions after a massive car bomb badly damaged the city’s police headquarters Wednesday evening.
The blast forced local police to retreat to the governor’s office, while around 40 of their colleagues and one senior commander surrendered to the Taliban. And in Kandahar, the Taliban said they had overrun the heavily fortified jail, saying “hundreds of prisoners were released and taken to safety”.
The Taliban target prisons to release incarcerated fighters and replenish their ranks. The loss of the prison is a further ominous sign for the country’s second city, which has been besieged for weeks by the Taliban.
Hundreds of thousands have been displaced by the fighting that has enveloped the country.
Kabul has been swamped by the displaced, who have begun camping out in parks and other public spaces, sparking a fresh humanitarian crisis in the already overtaxed capital.
In Washington, defence officials appeared to be grappling with the spiralling situation but insisted that Afghan security forces were still holding their ground.