Acting Defense Minister Masoom Stanekzai said on September 29 that that the Taliban fighters had allied with other insurgent groups to take Kunduz.
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Col. Brian Tribus, a spokesman for the military, said members of the coalition encountered insurgents and that’s when the USA ordered airstrikes through the day Tuesday and into the early morning Wednesday. The insurgents also set up checkpoints to ensure no one leaves.
The Taliban’s incursion into Kunduz coincides with the first anniversary of President Ashraf Ghani’s national unity government coming to power.
Baryalai, another resident, said there was no fighting at noon.
“They did what they had to do, and they’re going to take a beating [getting] out of there”, the official said, predicting that Afghan forces would dislodge the militants from the city within weeks.
They said the Taliban had planted explosive devices along the roads connecting Kundiz to neighboring provinces in an attempt to slow government troop reinforcements.
USA and German forces regularly operate in the area advising Afghan forces.
But to those in Kunduz province and the city itself, the Taliban’s stunning victory wasn’t unexpected. In what would be a major policy shift, the military leadership wants to keep at least a few thousand US troops in Afghanistan beyond 2016, citing the fragile security situation. There are also 3,000 American troops in Afghanistan to support or carry out us counter-terrorism missions.
The timing of a new decision on USA troop levels is unclear. He is due to testify in Congress on October 6.
Another strategic site did not. The fall of the provincial capital, which sent panicked residents fleeing, has dealt a major blow to Afghanistan’s NATO-trained security forces and highlighted the insurgency’s potential to expand beyond its rural strongholds. Ghani has expressed worry about militants affiliated with the Islamic State group trying to gain a wider foothold in his country.
Rahmatullah Nabil, the head of the Afghan spy agency, apologized for failing to thwart the Taliban attack.
The options are said to be based on Campbell’s judgment of what it would take to sustain the Afghan army and minimize the chances of losing more ground gained over more than a decade of costly US combat, The Associated Press reported. Kunduz Gov. Omer Safi was out of the country for the Eid holiday, and his current whereabouts were unknown.
Ghani’s deputy spokesman, Sayed Zafar Hashemi, said the parliamentarians’ had the right to protest, but “for the president, the first priorities are the safety of the citizens in Kunduz and clearing the area of terrorists”.
Information from inside the city remained sketchy.
“The reports of extrajudicial executions, including of healthcare workers, abductions, denial of medical care and restrictions on movement out of the city are particularly disturbing”, said Nicholas Haysom, the special representative of the UN Secretary General.
Our correspondent said North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was not bombing the city itself because of its civilian population.
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Precise losses in the fighting were not known, but the Afghan health ministry said hospitals in Kunduz had so far received 16 bodies and more than 190 wounded people. He said around 90 percent of them were civilians.
