The Taliban besieges three cities in Afghanistan. They want to end the game
An Al Jazeera correspondent on Sunday cited "Extremely tense" fighting around three major cities – Lashkar Gah, Kandahar and Herat – which could fall into the hands of the Taliban in a short time due to tremendous military pressure.
"The Taliban have captured a huge amount of rural land in the past month and are now putting pressure on the cities, and then bring that lever back to the negotiating table," said Charlotte Bellis from Kabul.
Also on Sunday an important airport in southern Afghanistan was attacked by the Taliban. All flights departing from the country's second largest city, Kandahar, were halted after numerous rockets fired by the Taliban hit the international airport in the early morning hours.
The runway was damaged in the attack, used for civilian air travel, but no casualties were reported. The Taliban took responsibility for the assault, trying to justify that they consider the airport a legitimate military target.
"Kandahar airport was targeted by us because the enemy was using it as a center to conduct air strikes against us," a Taliban spokesman told Reuters.
And also Al Jazeera notes that "The facility is vital to provide the logistical and air support necessary to prevent the Taliban from invading the city, while providing air cover for large tracts of southern Afghanistan."
"After conquering vast tracts of rural territory and conquering the main border crossings, the Taliban have begun to besiege the provincial capitals," the report continues during the withdrawal of US troops.
It is now widely confirmed that the Taliban actually control most of all major border areas and crossings across the country. Afghan national troops previously defeated in several areas have fled across borders, most notably to Tajikistan, where Tajik national forces have sent thousands of reservists to protect the border from an invasion of deserters.
Herat was the seat of the Italian contingent which is still expected to evacuate about twenty interpreters and collaborators who, should the Taliban enter the city, would be immediately eliminated. Our government had guaranteed asylum, but the usual bureaucratic issues risk making victims. One wonders why they didn't load them on a boat to Lampendusa ..
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The article The Taliban besieges three cities in Afghanistan. They want to close the game comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/i-talebani-assediano-tre-citta-in-afganistan-vogliono-chiudere-la-partita/ on Mon, 02 Aug 2021 06:55:06 +0000.