File Photo. Noorullah Shirzada—AFP
Officials say security forces are attempting to retake Khan Abad district.
Taliban militants on Saturday captured a district in northeastern Kunduz province, near the provincial capital where militants scored their biggest victory in 14 years last September.
The militants, waging a bloody insurgency to topple the Western-backed Kabul government, have intensified their attacks nationwide and tightened their grip on the besieged capital of Helmand province southwest of Kunduz in recent weeks. Khan Abad district, which is around 30 kilometers east of Kunduz city, fell to the Taliban after the militants launched a pre-dawn attack on the district center, according to local officials.
“After several hours of fighting the militants overran the district,” the district’s governor Hayatullah Amiri told AFP, adding that the provincial governor ignored their calls for reinforcements. Provincial spokesman Sayed Mahmood Danish confirmed the overnight battle, and said security forces were “trying to get back control of the district from the Taliban.”
Khan Abad resident Abdul Satar told AFP hundreds had fled their homes amid the fighting. “The residents of the city are worried about their lives and safety. People are fleeing their homes and they have left their shops,” he said, adding that roads to neighboring provinces were closed.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed in a statement that the group’s fighters were in control of district and police headquarters.
The Taliban briefly captured northern Kunduz city in September last year, the first city to fall to the insurgents in their biggest victory in 14 years of war. The militants were driven out almost two weeks later by Afghan forces backed by U.S. aircraft and NATO soldiers, but it marked the first time since 2001 that the Taliban were able to take control of a major city in the country.
But U.S. and Afghan officials insist that they will not allow another urban center to be captured after Kunduz was briefly overrun last year.