KABUL/MOSCOW/HERAT: Afghan government forces on Thursday wrest back control of a western provincial capital stormed by the Taliban a day earlier and hundreds of fresh troops have been deployed to the region, the defence ministry said.
It said some fighting was continuing on the fringes of Qala-e-Naw, capital of Badghis province, which borders the central Asian country of Turkmenistan. Insurgents had on Wednesday seized key government buildings in the city including police headquarters as part of a dramatic Taliban advance unfolding as foreign forces withdrew from Afghanistan after a 20-year-long intervention.
“The city is fully (back) under our control and we are conducting operations against the Taliban on the outskirts of the city,” Defence Ministry spokesman Fawad Aman said. The ministry said 69 Taliban fighters had been killed in fresh operations on the edge of Qala-e-Naw - the first major provincial capital entered by the Islamist insurgents in their latest offensive.
A large quantity of Taliban arms and ammunition was also seized by government forces, the ministry said on Twitter. The rest of Badghis province is in Taliban hands. Western security officials say the Taliban have captured more than 100 districts in Afghanistan; the Taliban say they hold over 200 districts in 34 provinces comprising over half the country. Main cities and provincial capitals remain under government control.
Meanwhile, the Taliban on Thursday seized another key Afghan border crossings, this time with Iran, according to an Afghan official and Iranian media. The seizure is part of a Taliban surge as American troops complete their pullout from Afghanistan.
It was the third border crossing the insurgents have taken in the past week, after previously seizing crossings with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. An Afghan official said the Taliban on Thursday took control the Islam Qala crossing point in western Herat province. Afghan soldiers in the border area of Islam Qala — a major transit route between Afghanistan and Iran — fled from their positions, crossing into Iran for refuge, Iranian media reported.
The crossing is around 120 kilometers west of the city of Herat, the provincial capital. Meanwhile, the Russian-led CSTO military bloc said on Thursday it was ready to mobilise its full capacity if the situation in Tajikistan's border with Afghanistan deteriorated as a Taliban delegation in Moscow told Russia it did not pose a threat to the region.
The CSTO, the six-nation Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) dominated by Russia, said on Thursday it was ready to use all its resources if necessary to contain a crisis on the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan, the Interfax news agency reported.
