By Ahmed Mengli and Mushtaq Yusufzai - NBC News
The Taliban seized two major Afghan cities on Friday, according to the militant group and local officials, as vital centers across the country collapsed and the United States rushed to evacuate its citizens.
The capture of
Kandahar
, in the south, and
Herat
, in the west, represent the biggest rewards to date for the Taliban, who have seized a series of provincial capitals in a massive bombardment as US troops withdraw from the country after two decades of war.
A Taliban spokesman told NBC News that the group's fighters had taken over both cities, capitals of their respective eponymous provinces.
Kandahar MP Gul Ahmad Kamin confirmed to NBC News early Friday that the city had fallen.
In Herat, local MP Masood Karokhai said the Taliban had taken control of the city after launching an offensive from various locations.
Karokhai said the region's airport and the military base on the outskirts of the city were still controlled by government forces.
[Biden announces that the US will leave Afghanistan on August 31 despite the risk of civil war and the resurgence of the Taliban]
Washington announced Thursday that the
United States will send 3,000 troops to help ensure the withdrawal of most of the personnel from the US embassy in Kabul.
The move comes "in light of the evolving security situation," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters, citing the Taliban's advances and increased violence.
"This is not an abandonment. It is not an evacuation.
It is not a total withdrawal," he
said.
The move comes at the end of a swift US troop withdrawal that began in April, just weeks before the last remaining US forces were due to depart according to President Joe Biden's August 31 deadline.
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On the other hand, the United Kingdom has declared that it will deploy some 600 soldiers in the short term to help British citizens leaving the country and Canada is sending special forces to help evacuate its embassy.
The move to downsize the US embassy comes after a
warning to US citizens to leave the country immediately
and impressive advances by the Taliban on the battlefield.
The White House has been criticized by some lawmakers and former US officials for the way it has managed the troop pull-out, and critics say the Administration should have had more detailed plans to sustain Afghan security forces and to evacuate the Afghans who assisted the United States Government.
["Time to end America's longest war": Biden announces total troop withdrawal from Afghanistan]
The rapid fall of the provincial capitals deals a severe blow to the crumbling Afghan government forces that have struggled to contain the Taliban offensive as US and NATO troops withdraw. The group has swept the country faster than the US military expected, three defense officials told NBC News, and at a rate that has even surprised some of the fighters themselves.
The militant group's advance has caused many Afghans to flee their homes, seeking refuge both from the fighting and the possibility of the Islamist regime that ruled the country before 2001 re-imposing itself.
While they were in power, the
militants
Taliban applied a strict interpretation of Islam,
according to which women were practically invisible in public life.
In the early hours of Thursday, the militants raised their white flags with a proclamation of Islamic faith over the city of Ghazni, just 80 miles (130 kilometers) southwest of Kabul.
Taking the city would cut off a crucial highway linking the Afghan capital, Kabul, with the country's southern provinces, all as part of an insurgent offensive some 20 years after US and NATO troops invaded and overthrow the Taliban government.
Biden announces that he will withdraw troops from Afghanistan.
Uncertainty about the future of that country grows
April 14, 202101: 45
Although Kabul is not yet directly threatened, losses and battles elsewhere further tighten the grip of the resurgent Taliban, who are now estimated to hold more than two-thirds of the country and continue to press their offensive.
The
loss of Ghazni
, located along the Kabul-Kandahar highway, could also complicate the resupply and movement of government forces, as well as compressing the capital from the south.
Taliban shelling has seen militants seize provincial capitals across the country.
Many of them are in the northeast of the country, putting pressure on Kabul from that direction as well, with Badghis province being the last to fall into the hands of the Taliban on Friday, according to local officials.
The Afghan government has deployed special operators to shore up key areas against relentless Taliban attacks, three US officials said, but Afghan forces have been exhausted and tired after weeks of fighting.
[A senior US commander in Afghanistan will resign on Monday, marking a symbolic end to 20 years of war]
"All the momentum is going in one direction right now," said a US defense official.
With Afghan air power limited and in disarray,
the U.S. Army has been carrying out one to five airstrikes every day,
weather permitting, a defense official said, mostly using drones flying from neighboring countries. .
Although these attacks may have a tactical or immediate impact on a specific battle,
the airstrikes as a whole are not having a strategic impact on the fighting between the Afghan Army and the Taliban
, said a US defense official.
A handful of US airstrikes will not stop the Taliban, they said.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday and told him that the United States "continues to bet on the security and stability of Afghanistan in the face of violence from the Taliban, "according to the State Department.
But, as diplomats met in Doha, Qatar, the success of the Taliban offensive called into question the possibility that they would rejoin long-stalled peace talks with the Ghani government.