The religious movement Has taken over a pair of a lot of Provincial Capitals In Islamic State of Afghanistan As U.S. Exit Nears

 

The Taleban taken 2 provincial capitals in Afghanistan on Sunday, consistent with Afghan officers, the most recent to be overtaken by the insurgents since the beginning of a sweeping military offensive in might.

With the capture of Taleqan, the capital of the northeastern province of Takhar, and therefore the strategically necessary town Kunduz simply hours earlier, the Taleban currently have a hold on four provincial capitals across the country.

In Kunduz, fighting between Taleban insurgents and Afghanistan's government forces transpire Sunday close to the governor's workplace and police station, provincial member Ghulam Rabani Rabani told The Associated Press.

Rabani aforesaid the Taleban was currently up to the mark of the 2 buildings. They conjointly taken a jail building in Kunduz, consistent with Rabani.

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With a population of concerning 375,000, Kunduz is taken into account a significant hub for social science and culture. Its location — roughly two hundred miles from the capital of capital of Afghanistan — conjointly makes town a major military prize.

Takhar conjointly has explicit significance to AN alliance of northern anti-Taliban fighters, United Nations agency joined the U.S.-led coalition to oust the Taleban at the beginning of the war in 2001. 2 Afghan lawmakers told the AP that the capital fell to the Taleban earlier Sunday.

The U.S. withdrawal is obtaining nearer

The Taleban offensive comes because the U.S. nears a point set earlier this year to finish its military operation within the country by the tip of August — simply back of the twentieth day of the Sept. 11 attacks. concerning 650 U.S. troops stay within the country — down from a peak of ninety eight,000 in 2011, consistent with the U.S. Department of Defense.

Just this past week, the Taleban captured 2 different provincial capitals — one in southwestern Afghanistan, the opposite within the north. It killed the director of the nation's government media center in capital of Afghanistan and tried to assassinate the acting defense minister.

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"What we tend to area unit seeing in Kunduz immediately is extremely the same as what is been happening in Zaranj and Sheberghan — the opposite 2 provincial capitals the Taleban took," Kabul-based journalist Ali Latifi told NPR.

The Afghan government denies the Taliban's gains

While the Taleban has discharged photos, videos and different materials claiming a takeover of major government compounds, prisons and different key locations in Kunduz, the Afghan government in capital of Afghanistan denies that Taleban forces had taken town, consistent with The Associated Press.

"It's very, at now, a war of words," Latifi told NPR on Weekend Edition Sunday

The U.S. State Department says it is not able to surrender on peace talks that started last year within the Qatari capital of Bida. But U.S. negotiant Zalmay Khalilzad says the Taleban area unit feeling bold.

"At now, they're hard that they take the lion's share of power within the next government given the military state of affairs as they see it," Khalilzad aforesaid.

As recently July, the Taleban had secured 1/2 Afghanistan's quite four hundred districts, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of {staff|Joint Chiefs|executive agency} of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, told reporters last month, consistent with Reuters.

The continuing violence across the state shows augmented momentum for the Taleban, as Milley rumored in Gregorian calendar month that eighty one districts had been overtaken by the insurgent cluster.

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