More Provincial Capitals Fall to the Taliban

Aug. 13, 2021 (EIRNS)—Five more Afghan cities, in part or in whole, have fallen to the Taliban since yesterday. They are the centers of Herat, Kandahar, Helmand and Zabul provinces, TOLOnews reports this morning. Sources told TOLOnews that in Herat, all government officials, including the Herat governor, police chief, head of the National Directorate of Security office in Herat, former warlord Mohammad Ismail Khan, the deputy minister of interior for security, and the 207 Zafar Corps commander surrendered to the Taliban after the province fell to the group. In Uruzgan province near Helmand and Kandahar, the provincial governor said some elders are in talks with him to encourage him to hand over the province to the Taliban without fighting, reported TOLOnews.

All told, TOLOnews says, the Taliban have now captured control of 17 provinces. Only two major cities aside from Kabul remain in control of the government—Mazar-e-Sharif in the north and Jalalabad on the Pakistan border in the east.