July 4, 2021: The Taliban have seized a key district in their former stronghold of Kandahar – the latest to occupy the area since US troops began their final withdrawal, officials said Sunday.
Insurgents have stepped up their campaign to seize rural Afghanistan since early May when the US military began withdrawing. The fall of the fifth district in southern Kandahar Province comes just two days after US and NATO forces vacated their main base near Kabul, from where they fled to the Taliban and their al-Qaeda affiliates. The operation had continued for two decades.
Due to its proximity to the provincial capital, Kandahar, the Taliban and Afghan forces have been fighting regularly in and around Panjwai for many years. Kandahar Province is the birthplace of the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan with a strict version of Sharia law until the end of the US-led invasion in 2001. Panjwai Governor Hasti Mohammad said Afghan forces and the Taliban clashed at night, forcing government forces to withdraw from the area. “The Taliban have seized the district police headquarters and the governor’s office building,” he told AFP.
Syed Jan Khakriwal, head of the Kandahar Provincial Council, confirmed the fall of the Panjwai, but accused government forces of “deliberately retreating”.
Fighting has broken out in several Afghan provinces in recent weeks, with the Taliban claiming to have captured more than 100 of the country’s nearly 400 districts. Afghan officials disagree with the claims but acknowledge that government forces have retreated from some districts. It is difficult to independently verify the situation.
In the north of Kabul, the withdrawal of foreign troops from Bagram Air Base has raised fears that insurgents will step up their campaign to seize new territory. Bagram Air Base is of great military and symbolic importance, foreign forces have been there before and offered significant air support in the fight against the insurgents. Afghan officials who have taken control of the base say they will use it to fight terrorism, and have already reactivated its radar system.
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