Besieged city holds Taliban off — at present

Kunduz on verge of takeover as nearby district is overrun.

KUNDUZ, AFGHANISTAN — The northern Afghan city of Kunduz was on the verge of falling to the Taliban Saturday, as residents began to flee and a key district nearby was overrun by insurgents, Afghan officials and local residents reported.

Late Saturday, however, it appeared that disaster had been narrowly averted, at least temporarily, military leaders in Kabul said.

Fighting here had reached the eastern edge of the city early Saturday, as insurgents captured the nearby Khanabad district. There was also heavy fighting on the city’s northern side, and residents said the city, Afghanistan’s fifth largest, was surrounded.

By the end of the day, government forces appeared to have stalled the Taliban advance, retaking Khanabad.

“Kunduz will not fall to the Taliban,” Gen. Dawlat Waziri, a spokesman for the ministry of defense, said at a news conference.

Nonetheless, government officials began to transfer inmates from the Kunduz prison to the airport. The move was apparently aimed at preventing the Taliban from freeing the inmates as they did in September after capturing the city before losing it to the government.

Some officials and residents fled Saturday to the Kunduz airport. Last year, the airport area was the only part of this city that did not fall to the insurgents. It became the only holdout for government forces, backed by heavy support from U.S. Special Forces who, with the aid of U.S. air power, ousted the Taliban after more than two weeks of fighting.

The officials said the insurgents were trying Saturday to destroy a key bridge that would cut highway access from the northern city to Tajikistan. The only remaining road out of the city was the Kunduz to Baghlan highway, which was briefly blocked Saturday morning by the insurgents, but forced open by Afghan security forces in the afternoon.

Social media postings showed residents fleeing the city.

“We are in a very bad condition,” said Shamsulhaq, 30, a resident who, like many Afghans, uses only one name. “Our children are afraid of the sounds of heavy and light weapons.

“We don’t have any hope that the situation in Kunduz will get better,” Shamsulhaq added. “Today entire government institutions like banks and other organizations were closed. Our children did not go to school. We don’t have water or electricity. All routes are blocked, so we cannot go anywhere.”

Many residents said badly needed air support and ground reinforcements had been slow to arrive, although officials promised that special forces were on the way.

Afghan officials said late Saturday that they had sent reinforcements, and the defense here was being directed by the army’s deputy chief of staff, Murad Ali Murad, who was recently credited with holding off a Taliban takeover in Helmand province.