Kabul:
The Taliban have captured their initially provincial capital given that launching an offensive to coincide with the departure of foreign troops, a senior official confirmed Friday, a substantial psychological blow to a government desperately defending a string of cities against the insurgents.
“The city of Zaranj, provincial capital of Nimroz, has fallen to the Taliban,” Roh Gul Khairzad, the deputy governor, told AFP.
She stated the city — in southwest Afghanistan close to the Iranian border — had fallen “without a fight”, and social media showed clips of insurgents roaming the streets, becoming cheered by residents.
The veracity of the videos could not right away be confirmed.
The fall of Zaranj comes the exact same day the Taliban claimed duty for killing the head of the Afghan government’s media data division.
The insurgents warned just days earlier they would target senior administration figures in retaliation for elevated air strikes.
The assassination of Dawa Khan Menapal, one of the government’s major voices, followed a further bloody day of fighting as the war increasingly spills into Kabul.
The news from southwestern Afghanistan also comes as the UN Security Council meets in New York to talk about the conflict.
“Unfortunately, the savage terrorists have committed a cowardly act once again and martyred a patriotic Afghan,” interior ministry spokesman Mirwais Stanikzai stated of the death of Menapal.
Menapal was well known in Kabul’s tight-knit media neighborhood, and identified for pillorying the Taliban on social media — even jokingly at instances.
The Taliban claimed duty for the death, with spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid sending a message to media saying “he was killed in a special attack carried out by mujahideen”.
The murder comes just after the militants warned Wednesday of more attacks targeting Afghan government leaders.
The day just before, defence minister Bismillah Mohammadi escaped an assassination try in a bomb-and-gun attack.
The Afghan and US militaries have stepped up air strikes in their fight against the insurgents in a string of cities, and the Taliban stated Tuesday’s Kabul raid was their response.
Fighting in Afghanistan’s extended-operating conflict has intensified given that May, when foreign forces started the final stage of a withdrawal due to be completed later this month.
The Taliban currently manage huge portions of the countryside, and are now difficult government forces in many provincial capitals.
‘Nothing left’
Government forces continue to hit Taliban positions with air strikes and commando raids, and the defence ministry boasted Friday of eliminating more than 400 insurgents in the previous 24 hours.
Both sides regularly exaggerate battlefield casualty figures, producing independent verification practically not possible.
But even as Afghan officials claimed to be hitting the Taliban difficult, safety forces have however to flush out the militants from provincial capitals they have currently entered — with hundreds of thousands of civilians forced to flee in current weeks.
Social media was also filled with videos of the devastating toll the fighting has taken in the southern city of Lashkar Gah, with posts displaying a significant market place location in flames.
Aid group Action Against Hunger stated its offices had been hit by an “aerial bomb” in the city earlier this week, according to a statement released by the organisation on Friday.
“The building was marked from the street and roof as a non-governmental (NGO) organisation, and the office location has been communicated often to the parties involved in the conflict,” stated the group, adding that no employees had been harmed.
In the western city of Herat, a steady stream of people today have been leaving their residences in anticipation of a government assault on positions held by the Taliban.
“We completely evacuated,” stated Ahmad Zia, who lived in the western aspect of the city.
“We have nothing left and we do not know where to go,” he told AFP.
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