World / Taliban claims to capture Afghanistan's 2nd-largest city Kandahar

Kabul: The Taliban claimed to have captured Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city and the birthplace of the movement, on Friday after days of fierce fighting. "Kandahar is completely conquered. The Mujahideen reached Martyrs' Square in the city," a Taliban spokesperson tweeted, according to AFP. A resident also told AFP that government forces appeared to have withdrawn to a military facility outside the city.

Hours before that the United States announced that it will send troops to evacuate personnel from the US embassy in Kabul. The Pentagon said 3,000 US troops would be deployed to Kabul within the next 24 to 48 hours and stressed that they would not be used to launch attacks against the Taliban. "We are further reducing our civilian footprint in Kabul in light of the evolving security situation," US State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters. "This is not abandonment. This is not an evacuation. This is not the wholesale withdrawal," he said.

UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said London would send 600 of its troops to evacuate its nationals and "support the relocation of former Afghan staff who risked their lives serving alongside us".

According to AP, the seizure of Kandahar and Herat marks the biggest prizes yet for the Taliban. The group has now taken 12 of Afghanistan's 34 provincial capitals as it has mounted offensives in the last few days and continue to press forward.

A US military intelligence assessment suggests Kabul could come under Taliban within 30 days and that the group could gain full control of the country within a few months. Most of the country is now under the Taliban's control as the US and Nato forces will complete withdrawal by the end of the month.

On Thursday, government forces pulled out of Herat, an ancient silk road city near the Iranian border, and retreated to a district army barracks after being under siege for weeks. "We had to leave the city in order to prevent further destruction," a senior security source from the city told AFP.

However, a Taliban spokesperson posted on Twitter that "soldiers laid down their arms and joined the Mujahideen".

On Thursday, the Afghan interior ministry also confirmed the fall of Ghazni, about 150 kilometres from Kabul. "The enemy took control," the ministry's spokesperson Mirwais Stanikzai said in a message to the media. He also said that the city's governor had been arrested by Afghan security forces.

A security personnel familiar with the development told AFP that Qala-i-Naw, the capital of Badghis province in the northwest, also fell on Thursday.

The Taliban attacks have forced thousands of Afghans to flee their homes as videos and photographs on social show the group's fighters killing and torturing civilians.