Taliban fighters have seized control in much of the key city of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, including government buildings and the police headquarters, a provincial council member said Sunday.
Ghulam Rabani Rabani said fighting between insurgents and government forces had taken place around the governor’s office and police headquarters but that later the Taliban had taken over the two buildings. They also had control of the main prison building in Kunduz, he said.
Rabani said fighting was continuing at the city’s airport and other parts of the city. Kunduz is a strategic crossroads with good access to much of northern Afghanistan as well as the capital, Kabul, about 200 miles (335 kilometers) away.
The Taliban have also taken government buildings in the northern provincial capital of Sar-e Pul, driving officials out of the main city to a nearby military base, Mohammad Noor Rahmani, a provincial council member of Sar-e Pul province, said Sunday.
A Taliban offensive has gathered momentum in recent days, as the insurgents unleashed their forces across Afghanistan after the United States announced it would end its military mission in the country by the end of August.
On Friday, the insurgents captured their first provincial capital in years when they took control of Zaranj, on the border with Iran in Afghanistan’s southern Nimroz province.
An Afghan security forces spokesperson said “extremely (heavy) fighting is going on” in Kunduz, as security forces fought to defend the city, regarded as a strategic prize as it lay at the gateway to mineral-rich northern provinces and Central Asia.
But a provincial lawmaker in Kunduz told Reuters the insurgents had taken key buildings in the city of 270,000 people, raising fears that it could be the latest to fall to the Taliban.
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