Sarwar Hussaini, a provincial police spokesman, says Afghan forces have launched an operation on several fronts around Kunduz to try and retake the city. The hardline Islamists hoisted their flag over the main square of the northeastern city of Kunduz, witnesses said, after 2,000 of their fighters took the city, offering a potentially powerful image in a country that laboured under their rule until 2001. “With capturing of cops compound and governor’s office in Kunduz, the whole province fell to our hands”, the Taliban’s spokesman asserted Monday on his Twitter account.
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Kunduz is considered a gateway to Afghanistan’s northern provinces and shares a border with Tajikistan, Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbour.
The fall of Kunduz city centre marked the first time in the almost 14-year-old war that the Taliban had seized a provincial capital and was a major embarrassment to the year-old government of President Ashraf Ghani.
The fall of the city marks a devastating blow to Afghanistan’s Western-backed government and its security forces, which have largely fought on their own since US and allied forces mostly ended their combat role a year ago.
Security for the region – which was a flagship project for the German army – was transferred to Afghan forces in 2013.
“They’ve been relocated inside Afghanistan“, stated D.I. spokesman Dominic Medley, declining to say the place or what number of employees have been evacuated.
“The residents of Kunduz should be assured of their security; they should not be concerned”, the Taliban’s new leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, said in a statement.
The Taliban have a history of brutality toward those they regard as apostates, and have banned girls from school as well as music, movies and other trappings of modern life in areas under their control. “The mujahideen are trying to avoid any harm to Kunduz residents”, he said. “Kunduz residents are shocked”.
Taliban prisoners walk on a street after their comrades released… “Therefore, officials in Kabul have to admit their defeat with courage”, the statement said.
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Its members have been fighting an insurgency ever since, although it has increased in intensity since the beginning of the year after North Atlantic Treaty Organisation withdrew nearly all of its soldiers.
