Kabul: The Taliban captured two major Afghan cities, the country’s second and third-largest after Kabul, and a strategic provincial capital on Thursday, further squeezing the embattled government just weeks before the end of the American military mission in Afghanistan.
The seizure of Kandahar and Herat marks the biggest prizes yet for the Taliban, who have taken 12 of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals as part of a week-long fight.
The capture of the city of Ghazni, meanwhile, cuts off a crucial highway linking the Afghan capital, Kabul, with the country’s southern provinces, all part of an insurgent push some 20 years after U.S. and NATO troops invaded and ousted the Taliban government.
“Kandahar is completely conquered. The Mujahideen reached Martyrs’ Square in the city,” a Taliban spokesman tweeted on an officially recognized account — a claim backed by a resident, who told AFP government forces appeared to have withdrawn en masse to a military facility outside the city.
Britain said it would deploy around 600 troops to help its nationals and local translators get out.
As the United Nations warned that a Taliban offensive reaching the capital would have a “catastrophic impact on civilians,” the United States and Germany urged all their citizens to leave Afghanistan immediately.
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