Taliban complete northeast Afghan blitz as more cities fall
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban seized three more Afghan provincial capitals and a local army headquarters Wednesday to complete a blitz across the country’s northeast, giving them control of two-thirds of the nation as the U.S. and NATO finalize their withdrawal after decades of war.
The fall of the capitals of Badakhshan and Baghlan provinces to the northeast as well as Farah province to the west put increasing pressure on the country’s central government to stem the tide of the advance, even as its lost a major base in Kunduz. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani rushed to Balkh province, already surrounded by Taliban-held territory, to seek help pushing back the insurgents from warlords, many linked to allegations of atrocities and corruption. He also replaced his army chief of staff.
While the capital of Kabul itself has not been directly threatened in the advance, the stunning speed of the offensive raises questions of how long the Afghan government can maintain the control of the slivers of the country it has left. The government may eventually be forced to pull back to defend the capital and just a few other cities.
“I think what I would say to President Ghani is if you remain spread out everywhere, the Taliban will be able to continue to apply their current approach with success,” warned Ben Barry, the senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “You’ve got to do a bit more than stopping the Taliban. You’ve got to show you can push them back.”
The success of the Taliban offensive also calls into question whether they would ever rejoin long- stalled peace talks in Qatar aimed at moving Afghanistan toward an inclusive interim administration as the West hoped. Instead, the Taliban could come to power by force — or the country could splinter into factional fighting like it did after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.
The multiple fronts of the battle have stretched the government’s special operations forces — while regular troops have often fled the battlefield — and the violence has pushed thousands of civilians to seek safety in the capital.
The U.S. military, which plans to complete its withdrawal by the end of the month, has conducted some airstrikes but largely has avoided involving itself in the ground campaign.
The latest U.S. military intelligence assessment, taking into account the Taliban’s recent gains, is that Kabul could come under insurgent pressure within 30 days, and if current trends hold, the Taliban could gain full control of the country within a couple of months, according to a U.S. defense official, who discussed the internal assessment on condition of anonymity.
Hujatullah Kheradmand, a lawmaker from Badakhshan, said the Taliban had seized his province’s capital, Faizabad. An Afghan official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak about an unacknowledged loss, said Baghlan’s capital, Poli-Khumri, also fell.
The Afghan government and military did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The insurgents earlier captured six other provincial capitals in the country in less than a week.
On Wednesday, the Afghan National Army’s 217th Corps headquarters at Kunduz airport fell to the Taliban, according to Ghulam Rabani Rabani, a provincial council member, and lawmaker Shah Khan Sherzad.
The province’s capital, also called Kunduz, was already among those seized, and the capture of the base now puts the country’s northeast firmly in Taliban hands.
The rapid fall of wide swaths of the country to the Taliban raises fears that the brutal tactics they used to rule Afghanistan before will also return.