Taliban Seizes 10th Afghan Provincial Capital As Ghazni Falls
By RFE/RL's Radio Azadi August 12, 2021
The Taliban has captured Ghazni, the 10th Afghan provincial capital to fall to the militants over the past week, and security forces arrested the province's governor after he fled the city.
Afghan officials told RFE/RL on August 12 that Governor Dawod Laghmani was being held by Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) in Kabul for investigation. They did not give further details.
Videos posted on social media showed Laghmani's convoy of vehicles heading to Kabul from Taliban-controlled areas after the fall of Ghazni, increasing public criticism of the Afghan government and high-ranking officials that they were leaving government-controlled areas to the Taliban without resistance.
Ghazni is located 150 kilometers southwest of Kabul. The city has a major strategic importance as it lies along the major Kabul-Kandahar highway that connects the capital with the militant strongholds in the south.
The Taliban now controls almost a third of the country's 34 provincial capitals.
Sporadic fighting continued at an intelligence base and an army installation outside the city, officials said.
The Interior Ministry spokesman confirmed that the Taliban had overrun most of the city.
"The enemy took control," Mirwais Stanikzai said in a message to media, adding fighting and resistance was still going on.
Local residents told RFE/RL that Taliban fighters entered the city, while the militants released images showing fighters inside Ghazni. The Taliban claims to have seized the governor's office, the police headquarters, and other offices.
Heavy fighting was also reported in the cities of Lashkar Gah, Kandahar, and Qala-e Naw, the capital of the northwestern province of Badghis, as well as Herat, close to the Iranian border.
In Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern Helmand Province, the Taliban on August 12 captured a police headquarters as fighting raged in the city of 200,000 -- one of Afghanistan's largest.
Fighting has also been intense in the southern city of Kandahar, once the stronghold of the militant group.
The Taliban said it overran the heavily fortified jail in Kandahar, saying "hundreds of prisoners were released and taken to safety."
The Taliban frequently targets prisons to release fighters that rejoin its ranks.
The fall of Kandahar would be a huge tactical success for the militants and a serious blow to the morale of the government troops.
In the western province of Herat, a source told RFE/RL that the government had evacuated some 800 military personnel from Shindand Air Base and sent them to beef up the defense in the city of Herat.
According to the source, there were no helicopters or aircraft on the air base, and the presence of the forces at this airport was not needed there.
President Ashraf Ghani, who is trying to rally a counteroffensive relying on his country's special forces, the militias of allied warlords, and U.S. airpower, fired the army chief of staff on August 11.
Ghani also traveled to Mazar-e Sharif, the capital of Balkh Province and a key regional hub, to rally local defenses.
The Taliban offensive has gained momentum across Afghanistan since May 1, when the United States and its allies officially began a pullout slated for completion by the end of this month.
On August 11, the Taliban captured Kunduz airport when most government forces there surrendered.
Meanwhile, a third and final day of talks between the Taliban and the Kabul government was under way on August 12 in Qatar.
Envoys from the United States, China, Russia, and Pakistan met in Doha with Taliban and Afghan government negotiators on August 12 in a last-gasp bid to find a negotiated solution to the raging conflict.
The Afghan delegation sent to Doha, led by Abdullah Abdullah, head of the government's reconciliation council, has demanded the Taliban immediately end attacks on cities and begin a dialogue to find a political solution, Hamid Tahzib, a spokesman for Afghanistan's deputy foreign minister, said in a statement on August 11.
Abdullah said the day before that the Taliban had not taken peace talks seriously in recent months and that no progress had been made.
State Department spokesman Ned Price also lamented the "painfully slow" pace of the talks.
"The Taliban committed to intra-Afghan talks on a peace accord that lead to a "permanent and comprehensive cease-fire," Price told a briefing on August 11, referring to an agreement between Washington and the militants reached in February last year.
"All indications at least suggest the Taliban are instead pursuing a battlefield victory," he said.
This story includes reporting by Radio Azadi correspondents on the ground in Afghanistan. Their names are being withheld for their protection.
With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and TASS
Source: https://gandhara.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-doha- taliban-peace-talks/31405767.html
Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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