Though government forces later retook the city, it was a stark warning of how far the Taliban has extended its reach into regions once thought secure, stretching the Afghan military and piling pressure on President Ashraf Ghani’s fragile national unity government.
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According to Kunduz police spokesperson, Sayed Sarwar Hussain, all fighters had been cleared from the city and life was returning back to normal. But the British Ministry of Defense said two Royal Air Force members were among those killed when the Puma Mk 2 helicopter crashed while landing at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Resolute Support Mission, which is training Afghan security forces. “There aren’t enough security forces in Baghlan”, says Arefyan, who worked for the Afghanistan Independent Election Commission during the 2005 Afghan parliamentary elections and the Electoral Complaints Commission during the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2009 and 2010 respectively.
“The harrowing accounts we’ve received paint a picture of a reign of terror during the Taliban’s brutal capture of Kunduz this week”, Horia Mosadiq, Afghanistan Researcher at Amnesty worldwide, told Tolo News.
The incident came as a Taliban suicide bomber attacked a convoy of United Kingdom troops in capital Kabul on Sunday morning, leaving seven Afghan civilians wounded and two armored tanks damaged. The Taliban said the attack was retaliation for an October 3 USA airstrike in Kunduz that killed 22 doctors and civilians. “They’re still holding. The Afghan government retains control of Kabul, of Highway One, its provincial capitals and almost all of the district centers”. “But we’ve seen them respond in recent weeks and months to the challenges they face, and they’re doing the same thing in Kunduz right now”.
“The Islamic Emirate considered it in its best military interest to fortify its trenches surrounding the city rather than keeping the city, which would result in casualties to the mujahedeen and a unnecessary waste of ammunition”, the statement said.
The administration had planned to bring the current 9,800 troop level to a 1,000 troop presence at the US embassy in Kabul, but is now weighing other options. The USA has also reduced its amount of airstrikes in Afghanistan.
On Monday night, according to Afghan officials, the insurgents made several attempts to destroy the strategic Chardara and Alchin bridges on the outskirts of the city, which would have isolated Kunduz, Afghanistan’s fifth-largest city. The withdrawal would inevitably reduce the government’s defensive capabilities, and it could give the Taliban the expectation that they will face even less opposition once the USA has left.
All five killed were from Resolute Support, a NATO-led mission to train Afghan security forces following the stand-down of the global Security Assistance Force a year ago.
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Around 500 British troops remain in Afghanistan as part of the mission.
