Taliban fighters have entered the capital of northern Afghanistan’s Jawzjan province after sweeping through nine of its 10 districts, a provincial lawmaker said. The Taliban took control of another provincial capital a day earlier.
The government did not deny lawmaker Mohammad Karim Jawzjani’s claim that Taliban fighters had entered Sheberghan, but said the city had not fallen. If the city falls, it will be the second provincial capital in as many days to succumb to the Taliban. Several other of the country’s 34 provincial capitals are threatened.
Taliban fighters have swept through large swathes of Afghanistan at surprising speed, initially taking districts, many in remote areas. In recent weeks they have laid siege to several provincial capitals across the country as the last U.S. and NATO troops leave the country. The U.S. Central Command says the withdrawal is more than 95% complete and will be finished by Aug. 31.
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul also issued a statement Saturday condemning the Taliban’ s military onslaught saying it was contrary to the insurgent group’s claim to support a negotiated peace settlement. In Helmand’s provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan’s elite commando forces aided by regular troops were trying to dislodge the Taliban but with little success, said Nafeeza Faiez, a provincial council member. Taliban are in control of nine of the city’s 10 police districts.
The group said Pakistan was implementing the demands of the Afghan government and demanded that previous procedures in which identities were rarely checked as people crossed the border be reinstituted.
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