Aug 11, 2021: Afghanistan’s acting finance minister resigned and fled the country in less than a week after the Taliban seized control of more than a quarter of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals.

The group has seized nine provincial capitals in Afghanistan since Friday, including Faizabad, Farah, Pul-e-Khumri, Sar-e-Pul, Sheberghan, Aibak, Kunduz, Taloqan and Zaranj.

Taliban fighters have made rapid progress across Afghanistan in recent months as US and other foreign forces withdrew from the country 20 years after their invasion.

According to Bloomberg, Afghanistan’s acting finance minister Khalid Payenda has resigned and has left the country after Taliban started taking over key customs posts and bleeding the administration’s revenue sources.

Payenda has “resigned and left the country because Afghanistan is grappling with declining revenues after the takeover of the custom posts”, finance ministry spokesman Mohammad Rafi Tabe said.

“The deteriorating security situation” and traveling abroad to be with his ailing wife were other reasons given by Tabe for Payenda’s resignation. It was not immediately clear where Payanda was headed.

The former minister tweeted on Tuesday that he was stepping down but did not himself elaborate on the reasons.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Afghan soldiers retreated to the airport outside Kunduz after the Taliban took control of the northern city over the weekend.

Amruddin Wali, a member of the Kunduz provincial council, said troops, police and insurgent forces “surrendered to the Taliban with all their military equipment”.

Local sources in Kunduz have confirmed Taliban reports that they have seized the provincial airport and that members of the Afghan National Security Forces have surrendered to the group.

It is to be noted that after the capture of the 9th provincial capital by the Taliban in the past week alone in addition to claims of rocket fire at Bagram air base, Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani has flown to Mazar-E-Sharif in a bid to rally the beleaguered Afghan forces.

The Afghan leader is also likely to hold talks with Mazar-i-Sharif’s longtime strongman Atta Mohammad Noor and infamous militia leader Abdul Rashid Dostum about the defence of the city as Taliban fighters inch closer to its outskirts.

The loss of Mazar-i-Sharif would be a catastrophic blow to the Afghanistan government in Kabul and represent the complete collapse of its control over the north, a place known as the strong hold against Taliban since many years.

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