Taliban close in on Kabul
Group tightens stranglehold as US ramps up Afghan evacuations
Kabul: The Afghan Taliban tightened their territorial stranglehold around Kabul, as refugees from the group’s relentless offensive flooded the capital and US Marines returned to oversee emergency evacuations from Afghanistan.
With the country’s second- and third-largest cities having fallen into Taliban hands, Kabul has effectively become the besieged, last stand for government forces who have offered little or no resistance elsewhere.
Taliban fighters are now camped less than 50km away, leaving the United States and other countries scrambling to airlift their nationals out of Kabul ahead of a feared allout assault.
The Taliban captured all of Logar province, just south of Kabul, and detained local officials, said lawmaker Hoda Ahmadi.
She said the Taliban had reached the Char Asyab district, just 11km south of Kabul.
The fighters also captured the capital of Paktika, bordering Pakistan, said lawmaker Khalid Asad.
He said fighting broke out in Sharana early yesterday but ended after local elders intervened to negotiate a pullout.
Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani held urgent talks with local leaders and international partners yesterday.
“As your president, my focus is on preventing further instability, violence, and displacement of my people,” he said in a televised address.
He gave no sign of responding to a Taliban demand that he resign for any talks on a ceasefire and a political settlement, saying his priority remained the consolidation of the nation’s security and defence forces.
In Kabul, US embassy staff were ordered to begin shredding and burning sensitive material, as the first American troops from a planned 3,000-strong redeployment started arriving to secure the airport and oversee evacuations.
A host of European countries, including Britain, Germany, Denmark and Spain, all announced the withdrawal of personnel from their respective embassies on Friday.
The scale and speed of the Taliban advance have shocked Afghans and the Us-led alliance that poured billions into the country after toppling the Taliban in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks nearly 20 years ago.
Days before a final US withdrawal ordered by President Joe Biden, individual Afghan soldiers, units and even whole divisions have surrendered – handing the fighters even more vehicles and military hardware to fuel their lightning advance.
Despite the frantic evacuation efforts, the Biden administration continues to insist that a complete Taliban takeover is not inevitable.
“Kabul is not right now in an imminent threat environment,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Friday, while acknowledging that Taliban fighters were “trying to isolate” the city.