Being a prized target for the Taliban group, Gen. Raziq ordered the Afghan forces earlier in August previous year to execute Taliban detainees who are arrested during the military operations.
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Provincial officials said they were unable to call in airstrikes to halt the insurgent advances, fearing collateral damage because Taliban assailants had occupied civilian areas of the city.
“It is a victory for the Taliban”, she added, “but it is much more a sign of how weak the government of Uruzgan is”.
The coordinated attack on Tarinkot city comes as the Taliban group aims to take control of the strategic cities as part of their spring offensive to weaken the government’s stance in the ongoing insurgency that has entered to its 15th year.
“All the surrounding areas of the capital are under tight siege and attacks of mujahideen”, the group said. The Talibandid not immediately issue any statements to media about the attack. “Some people here deliberately want the enemy to succeed”, he told AFP.
Tarin Kot is the third Afghan provincial capital to come under Taliban threat in recent months, along with the city of Kunduz in the north and Lashkar Gah in Helmand province.
General Abdul Raziq, the powerful police chief of Kandahar, said he was personally leading a contingent of military reinforcements to Uruzgan.
Fighting is now said to be raging around the police headquarters, the main prison facility and governor’s office.
The surge in Taliban attacks against Afghan security forces has prompted the United States to send additional troops to Helmand, whose capital Lashkar Gah is under heavy pressure from the fighters.
In Kabul, Mr Shah Hussain Murtazawi, a spokesman for President Ashraf Ghani, said: “Uruzgan will not turn into a terrorists’ safe haven”.
Since being toppled by a USA invasion in 2001, the Taliban have been seen as a rural militant movement capable only of hit-and-run attacks on cities.
Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense says its security forces are now waging operations in 15 provinces. But they have demonstrated an alarming new push into urban centres over the past year.
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Defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish rejected the “propaganda campaign”, saying the Taliban would be flushed out from the city s outskirts.
