As Eyder noted for the Two-Way Wednesday, the Taliban set up ambushes along the route traveled by government reinforcements, further complicating the Afghan military’s attempts to retake the city.
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He denied reports that they were fighting on the ground, stressing the forces were there in a non-combat, train-and-assist role.
There were no immediate details about civilian casualties during the new offensive.
“We don’t know what to do and where to go”, a male resident of Kunduz told CNN by phone before Afghan authorities announced the city was under their control.
Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani on Thursday said the he has constituted a commission to probe the fall of the northern Kunduz city to Taliban militants on Monday.
Aid workers are struggling to cope with the fighting underway in Kunduz as Afghan government troops battle street-to-street to push the Taliban out of this key northern city. He confirmed special forces fought the insurgents, but added: “This was done out of self-defence”.
Training the 350,000-strong Afghan National Security Forces has been at the heart of the USA plan to end involvement in its longest war.
“US forces conducted an airstrike in self-defense to eliminate the threat”, Col Brian Tribus, spokesman for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation said in a statement released on Wednesday.
Doctors Without Borders said its trauma hospital in the city has been overwhelmed with patients.
The attack is the second time this year that the Taliban threatened to seize Kunduz, which is the main city of Kunduz province. US and Afghan officials pitched investors Wednesday on doing business on military…
One of the protesters, Foruzan Haydari, a 23-year-old student, says the people of Afghanistan “are not happy with this government, every day there is fighting”.
It also accused the extremists of raping female relatives and killing family members of Afghan security personnel and army forces. The airport was one of the few locations that remained in Afghan government hands throughout the siege.
Another strategic site did not.
The Islamist group has been largely absent from cities since being driven from power by the United States and its allies, but has maintained often brutal rule over swathes of the countryside.
According to him, he asked the people of Kunduz and government officials to return to work and carry on with their daily lives.
Residents told the BBC the militants had pushed back into the heart of the city and that there were intense clashes over the governor’s office.
Officials who made it to the airport before roads were sealed were still hunkered down there.
President Ghani sacked governor of Kunduz province on Thursday. He said he could hear firefights and explosions.
Khan says the fighting on Thursday has taken front-stage to the “many problems inside the city”, which now has “no water, no electricity”.
However, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, said the fighting was continuing. “Around 90 percent of them are civilians”, he tweeted.
We strongly condemn the attacks in Kunduz, and stand with the Afghan people in our commitment to Afghanistan’s peace and security.
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A CNN report expressed suspicion of the provincial government’s ability to protect Kunduz, which lies on the strategic highway between Kabul and Tajikistan, which is an important trade route.
