Taliban on the advance: "Total chaos" near the former Bundeswehr headquarters

Since the international troops began to withdraw, the Taliban have been conquering more and more districts in the strategically important north of Afghanistan.

The number of refugees and civilian victims is increasing.

Kabul - The Taliban are on the rise in Afghanistan: it took the Islamists three days to conquer five provincial capitals.

This also includes the strategically important city of Kunduz, near which the Bundeswehr was stationed for around a decade.

The city has been in "total chaos" since then, as one resident reported.

Before that, from the beginning of May to the end of June alone, 90 of the roughly 400 districts in the country had been captured by the militant Islamist group; now there are more than 160. The Taliban's lightning offensive in northern Afghanistan has thus continued since the beginning of international troops. Withdrawal continues.

Withdrawal of NATO from Afghanistan: the end of an almost 20-year mission

The official withdrawal of international troops began in May, and with it the end of the NATO mission “Resolute Support”. The US military mission is scheduled to end on August 31, but recently the US has been flying again increasingly air strikes to support the Afghan army. Since the start of the withdrawal, the number of civilian fatalities and injuries has increased significantly. The training mission started in 2015 as a follow-up mission to the International Security Assistance Group (ISAF), which began after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 to secure peace and provide military support to the United States and which quickly developed into a combat mission against the radical Islamic militia of the Taliban.

Most recently, 36 NATO states and partner countries were involved in the “Resolute Support” training mission, including 1,100 soldiers from Germany.

With the withdrawal of the last German troops in June, the almost 20 year long mission in Afghanistan, which counts as the most loss-making and most expensive foreign mission in the history of the Bundeswehr, ended.

Of around 150,000 soldiers, who were often deployed several times in the Hindu Kush, 59 perished in Afghanistan *.

According to media reports, the federal government recently held secret talks with the Taliban, the issue of which was the protection of former Bundeswehr personnel.

UN: The number of refugees and civilian victims increases due to conquests

In addition to the city of Kunduz, Sar-i-Pul, the capital of the province of the same name in the north-west, and Talokan, the capital of the province of Tachar in the north-east of the country, also fell into the hands of the Islamists on Sunday (08.08.). Two days earlier, the Tailiban captured the southwestern provincial capital of Saranj, and Scheberghan in the northern province of Jausdzhan followed a day later. The north of Afghanistan is home to many militias who are fighting against the Islamists, so the advance of the Taliban in this region is a major setback for the Afghan army. According to the Defense Ministry, the Afghan troops have already started an offensive to recapture important structures in Kunduz.

Since the withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan and the conquest of several districts by the Taliban, the number of internally displaced people has risen enormously - a quarter of a million people had fled by the end of July, most of them from armed fighting in the northeast and east of the country.

According to the UN, 2021 could be the year with the highest number of civilian casualties.

List of rubric lists: © Abdullah Sahil / dpa