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Afghanistan: Taliban seize another provincial capital
A provincial lawmaker told AFP the insurgents had taken Farah city, capital of Farah province in western Afghanistan, while a Taliban spokesman posted pictures of fighters walking casually past the gates of the police headquarters and governor’s office.
The Taliban group seized another Afghan provincial capital on Tuesday - the seventh in less than a week - as tens of thousands of people fled their homes in the north for the relative safety of Kabul.
A provincial lawmaker told AFP the insurgents had taken Farah city, capital of Farah province in western Afghanistan, while a Taliban spokesman posted pictures of fighters walking casually past the gates of the police headquarters and governor’s office. Shahla Abubar, a member of Farah’s provincial council, said local security forces retreated towards an army base outside the city.
Five of the other provincial capitals to have fallen since last Friday are in the country’s north with the insurgents now setting their sights on Mazar-i-Sharif, the region’s biggest city. Its fall would signal the total collapse of government control in the traditionally anti-Taliban north.
Government forces are also battling the hardline Islamists in Kandahar and Helmand, the southern Pashto-speaking provinces from where the Taliban draw their strength.
The US, due to complete a troop withdrawal at the end of the month and end its longest war, has all but left the battlefield. Washington’s special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is now in Doha, Qatar to try and convince the Taliban leadership to accept a ceasefire.
Envoys from hosts Qatar, Britain, China, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, the UN, and European Union were also due to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.
But even with a new round of talks in the works, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said it was down to the Afghan government to turn the tide, and there was “not much” the United States could do to help.
President Ashraf Ghani called on regional strongmen to support his government, while a UN official said advances made in human rights in the last 20 years were in danger of being erased.
Russia showcases arms at drills near Afghan border
Soldiers from Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan used new Russian firearms, flame-throwers and surface-to-air missile launchers in military drills which concluded on Tuesday just 20km from the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border.
Moscow and its Central Asian ex-Soviet allies have held two separate sets of military exercises close to Afghanistan this month as Taliban militants overran much of the country’s northern provinces directly adjacent to Central Asia.
