The Taliban fly their flag in Kunduz as exhausted Afghan troops regroup.
The Taliban
seized a major strategic and propaganda prize early Sunday, capturing the
crucial northern commercial hub of Kunduz and then breaking through in two
other regional capitals later the same day.
The rapid fall of
Afghan cities on Sunday — including Kunduz, Sar-i-Pul and Taliqan, all northern
capitals — comes just weeks before U.S. forces were set to complete a total
withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is a crucial challenge for President Biden, who
in recent weeks has insisted the American pullout would continue despite the Taliban’s
advances.
After sweeping
through the country’s rural areas, the insurgents’ military campaign has
shifted to brutal urban combat in recent weeks. They have pushed into the edges
of major cities like Kandahar and Lashkar Gah in the south and Herat in the
west.
The strategy has
exhausted the Afghan government’s forces and overwhelmed the local militia
forces that the government has used to supplement its own troops.
Kunduz, the
capital of a province of the same name, is a significant military and political
prize. With a population of 374,000, it is a vital commercial city near the
border with Tajikistan, and a hub for trade and road traffic.
“All security
forces fled to the airport, and the situation is critical,” said Sayed Jawad
Hussaini, the deputy police chief of a district in Kunduz city.
Clashes between
government forces and Taliban fighters were continuing in a small town south of
the city, where the local army headquarters and the airport are situated,
security officials said.
“We are so tired,
and the security forces are so tired,” Mr. Hussaini said. “At the same time we
hadn’t received reinforcements and aircraft did not target the Taliban on time.”
Security forces,
who had retreated to the town earlier in the morning, began an operation to
flush Taliban fighters out of the city on Sunday evening, according to security
officials.
In the two
preceding days, the Taliban had taken two other provincial capitals: Sheberghan,
the capital of Jowzjan Province in the north, and Zaranj, the capital of Nimruz
Province on the Afghanistan-Iran border.
The Taliban
briefly seized Kunduz in 2015 and again in 2016, gaining control of a province
for the first time since American forces invaded in 2001. Both times, Afghan
forces pushed back the insurgents with help from American airstrikes. Kunduz is
also where an American gunship mistakenly attacked a Doctors Without Borders
hospital in 2015, killing 42 people.
