The Taliban on Friday evening seized two more provincial capitals in Afghanistan, Al Jazeera reported. Eighteen of the 34 provincial capitals in Afghanistan are now under their control.

The militant group took over Qalat, the capital of Zabul province, and Terenkot, the capital of Uruzgan province. It also seized power in Pul-e Alam, the capital of Logar province, and Feruz Koh, the capital city of Ghor. Logar is just 80 kilometres away from Kabul.

Huma Ahmadi, who represents Logar in the Afghan parliament, said the Taliban also abducted the province’s governor and head of its capital’s intelligence agency.

All local officials and Afghan security forces have left Feruz Koh and the Taliban have control of the city’s government buildings, parliament member Fatima Kohistani and councillor Fazel-ul Haq Ehsan told the news channel.

Earlier on Friday, the Taliban took control of the key Afghan cities of Lashkar Gah and Qala-e Naw, Al-Jazeera reported. On Thursday, they had captured two major cities and provincial capitals, Kandahar and Herat, according to AP.

They also captured another strategically important provincial capital of Ghazni on Thursday further squeezing the area that remains under the control of the Afghan government.

Kandahar and Herat are the second and third-largest cities of the country after Capital Kabul. Meanwhile, the capture of Ghazni cut off a crucial highway linking Kabul with the country’s southern provinces, according to Al Jazeera.

A Taliban spokesperson tweeted videos on Thursday claiming them to be from important centres in the cities of Herat and Kandahar.

The provincial capitals seized so far by the Taliban are Aybak, Kunduz, Taluqan, Faizabad, Pul-e-Khumri, Pul-e Alam, Ghazni, Terenkot, Kandahar, Lashkar Gah, Zaranj, Farah, Herat, Feruz Koh, Qala-e Naw, Sar-e-Pul, Sheberghan and Qalat.

Clashes between the Taliban and Afghan forces have escalated as foreign troops prepare to withdraw from the country by the end of August. More than 1,000 people have been killed in Afghanistan in the last month, the BBC reported, citing the United Nations.

While Kabul is not under direct threat yet, the Taliban are making rapid advances and are in control of two-thirds of Afghanistan. Of Afghanistan’s major cities, the government still holds Mazar-i-Sharif in the north and Jalalabad, near the Pakistani border in the east, apart from Kabul.

Credit: Al Jazeera.

Ongoing peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban at Qatari Capital Doha have failed to yield any result so far. The government reportedly made a power-sharing proposal to the Taliban for brokering peace, Al Jazeera reported. However, there has been no official confirmation on the matter.

The United Nations has warned that the Taliban reaching Kabul would have a “catastrophic impact on civilians” but there is little hope for negotiations to end the fighting, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, United Kingdom Defence Secretary Ben Wallace warned that Afghanistan was heading towards a civil war. He asserted that the UK would have the right to intervene if terror plots against it were planned from Afghanistan, BBC reported. In an interview to Sky News, Wallace criticised the US’ decision to pull out forces from the country.

“We are all as an international community paying the consequences of that,” he said.

Three Indians airlifted

Three Indian engineers were airlifted from a Taliban-controlled area, the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan said. The diplomatic office did not mention the specific location of the operation.

However, it issued another security advisory – the fourth in the past three months – asking Indians living in the country to strictly adhere to security measures advised earlier.

In the last advisory issued on Tuesday, the Embassy had asked Indian citizens to make immediate arrangements to leave the country in view of the deteriorating security situation in the country. The Embassy also told Indian companies to immediately withdraw their employees from worksites in Afghanistan before air travel services are discontinued.

Other countries too are taking steps to ensure the safety of their citizens living in Afghanistan.

The United States state department said that the country will send 3,000 fresh troops to the Kabul airport to help with a partial evacuation of the US Embassy, AP reported on Friday.

Canada has also said it would deploy special forces to Afghanistan to evacuate the staff at the country’s embassy in Kabul.

Germany urged its citizens on Thursday to leave Afghanistan as soon as they can, Reuters reported.