Conflict

Taliban captures several districts in northern Afghanistan as troops flee to neighbouring Tajikistan

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Taliban has captured several districts in northern Afghanistan as Afghan troops fled to the neighbouring Tajikistan. The Taliban now control roughly a third of all 421 districts and district centers in Afghanistan.

The Taliban’s march through northern Afghanistan gained momentum overnight with the capture of several districts from fleeing Afghan forces, several hundred of whom fled across the border into Tajikistan, international news agency Associated Press quoted officials as saying on Sunday.

The report quoting the statement of Tajikistan’s State Committee for National Security, said that more than 300 Afghan military personnel crossed from Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province as Taliban fighters advanced toward the border.

The Afghan troops crossed over at about 6: 30, in the evening, on local time Saturday, the report added.

“Guided by the principles of humanism and good neighborliness,” the Tajik authorities allowed the retreating Afghan National Defence and Security Forces to cross into Tajikistan, said the statement.

Since mid-April, when US President Joe Biden announced the end to Afghanistan’s “forever war,” the Taliban have made strides throughout the country. But their most significant gains have been in the northern half of the country, a traditional stronghold of the US-allied warlords who helped defeat them in 2001.

The report said that Taliban now control roughly a third of all 421 districts and district centers in Afghanistan.

The gains in northeastern Badakhshan province in recent days have mostly come to the insurgent movement without a fight, AP quoted Mohib-ul Rahman, a provincial council member, as saying. He blamed Taliban successes on the poor morale of troops who are mostly outnumbered and without resupplies.

“Unfortunately, the majority of the districts were left to Taliban without any fight,” said Rahman. In the last three days, 10 districts fell to Taliban, eight without a fight, he said.

Hundreds of Afghan army, police and intelligence troops surrendered their military outposts and fled to the Badakhshan provincial capital of Faizabad, said Rahman.

Even as a security meeting was being held early Sunday to plot the strengthening of the perimeter around the capital, some senior provincial officials were leaving Faizabad for the capital Kabul, he said.

In late June the Afghan government resurrected militias with a reputation of brutal violence to support the beleaguered Afghan forces but Rahman said many of the militias in the Badakhshan districts put up only a half-hearted fight.

The areas under Taliban control in the north are increasingly strategic, running along Afghanistan’s border with central Asian states. Last month the religious movement took control of Imam Sahib, a town in Kunduz province opposite Uzbekistan and gained control of a key trade route.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed the fall of the districts to AP and said most were without a fight. The Taliban in previous surrenders have shown video of Afghan soldiers taking transportation money and returning to their homes.

 

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