KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban captured a strategic provincial capital near Kabul on Thursday, the 10th the insurgents have taken in a weeklong sweep across Afghanistan just weeks before the end of the American military mission there, according to AP.
Seizing Ghazni cuts off a crucial highway linking the Afghan capital with the country’s southern provinces, which similarly find themselves under assault as part of an insurgent push some 20 years after the foreign troops arrived to oust the Taliban government.
While Kabul itself isn’t directly under threat, the loss of Ghazni tightens the grip of a resurgent Taliban estimated to now hold some two-thirds of the nation, and thousands of people have fled their homes.
The latest US military intelligence assessment suggests Kabul could come under insurgent pressure within 30 days and that, if current trends hold, the Taliban could gain full control of the country within a few months. The Afghan government may eventually be forced to pull back to defend the capital and just a few other cities.
The onslaught represented a stunning collapse of Afghan forces and renews questions about where the over $830 billion spent by the U.S. Defense Department on fighting, training those troops, and reconstruction efforts went — especially as Taliban fighters ride on American-made Humvees and pickup trucks with M-16s slung across their shoulders.
It also raised fears that the Taliban would turn back the clock on the country and reimpose a brutal regime. Already there are reports of repressive restrictions on women and revenge killings.
Afghan security forces and the government have not responded to repeated requests for comment over the days of fighting. President Ashraf Ghani is trying to rally a counteroffensive relying on his country’s special forces, the militias of warlords and American airpower ahead of the US and NATO pullout at the end of the month.
On Thursday, the militants raised their white flags imprinted with an Islamic proclamation of faith over the city of Ghazni, just 130 kilometres (80 miles) southwest of Kabul. Mohammad Arif Rahmani, a lawmaker from Ghazni, said the city had fallen to the insurgents. Ghazni provincial council member Amanullah Kamrani also told the AP that but added that the two bases outside of the city remain held by government forces.
Kamrani alleged that Ghazni’s provincial governor and police chief made a deal with the Taliban to flee after their surrender. Taliban video and photos purported to show the governor’s convoy passing by Taliban fighters unstopped as part of the deal.
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