Taliban gains: key political leaders meet President Ghani in show of strength

Kabul, Jul 31 (UNI) Fighting is raging around three major cities in Afghanistan – Herat, Lashkar Gah and Kandahar – with the Taliban militants entering parts of the cities in the southern and western part of the country. Amid the tense situation, prominent political leaders came together to meet President Ashraf Ghani in a show of unity.
President Ghani attended a consultative meeting with prominent Afghan political and jihadi leaders, religious scholars, women, and civil society and youth representatives on Saturday.
Abdullah Abdullah, head of the High Council for National Reconciliation, former jihadi leader Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf, former vice president Mohammad Karim Khalili, heads of security agencies and other officials attended the meeting, Tolo News reported.
Ghani said that in this meeting, the participants “unanimously declared their unwavering support for Afghanistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
“These leaders also declared their full support for Afghan Security and Defense Forces in the presence of the country’s security leadership. While stressing the urgency for peace, all agreed that defending Afghanistan is our fundamental right,” Ghani said.
Meanwhile, clashes intensified for the third day in the southern parts of Herat as the Taliban advanced towards the central parts on Saturday, leading to hundreds of people fleeing the area.
Security forces said the Taliban is using the homes of people and their gardens as shields, something that officials said has slowed down military operations against them, Tolo News reported.
Out of 17 districts in Herat, only Guzara and the city of Herat are under the government’s control. Others are held by the Taliban who are trying to move towards the centre of the city.
The Taliban took over Malan Bridge in the south of Herat city on Saturday.
“Pakistani fighters are supporting the Taliban in Herat, Farah and Badghis,” Herat governor Abdul Saboor Qane said. “Taliban has planned to attack Herat but they have faced resistance on the outskirts of the city and were defeated.”
Former Mujahedeen leader and a senior member of Jamiat-e-Islami party is leading hundreds of forces who fight alongside the Afghan troops against the Taliban.
According to BBC, in Lashkar Gah, capital of the southern province of Helmand, a local source said insurgents were only a few hundred metres from the governor’s office on Saturday.
Pro-Taliban social media accounts have uploaded videos of their fighters in the heart of the city.
Afghan special forces are being sent in to help push them back.
One MP in Kandahar told the BBC the city was at serious risk of falling to the Taliban, with tens of thousands of people already displaced and a humanitarian disaster looming.
Gul Ahmad Kamin said the situation in Kandahar was getting worse hour by hour, and the fighting within the city was the most severe in 20 years.
He said the Taliban now saw Kandahar as a major focal point, a city they want to make their temporary capital. If it fell, then five or six other provinces in the region would also be lost, Kamin said.
Thousands have been displaced in Kandahar, amid fighting between the army and the Taliban the US is still carrying out airstrikes to support the Afghan forces, who have recaptured a district around the airport.
The EU’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Tomas Niklasson, said he believed the war was set to get much worse.
He told the BBC’s chief international correspondent, Lyse Doucet, that he feared the Taliban way of thinking now was “something they had in the past – re-establishing… their Islamic emirate”.
The former head of the British Armed Forces, Gen David Richards, warned that the withdrawal of the US and coalition forces could result in the collapse of the Afghan army’s morale, leading to Taliban control and possibly a renewed international terrorist threat.
Humanitarian organizations have also warned of a major crisis in coming months as the Taliban continue their offensive – with a lack of food, water and services, and overcrowding in camps for the displaced.
In another development, the first flight evacuating Afghans who worked for the US government in Afghanistan took more than 200 people to the United States and President Joe Biden welcomed them home.
“Today is an important milestone as we continue to fulfill our promise to the thousands of Afghan nationals who served shoulder-to-shoulder with American troops and diplomats over the last 20 years in Afghanistan,” Biden said in a statement, Tolo News reported.
Biden said that these first Afghans are able to come directly to the United States because they have already completed extensive background checks and security screening by the Intelligence Community and the Departments of State and Homeland Security.
They will complete the final steps of their visa applications and required medical checks at Fort Lee, in Virginia, before travelling onward to begin their new lives in the United States, the statement said.
He said that although US troops are leaving, the United States will continue to support Afghanistan through security assistance to Afghan forces, as well as humanitarian and development aid to the Afghan people to help them sustain their achievements of the past 20 years.
“We will also continue our diplomatic support for the peace process,” Biden said. “We call for an immediate reduction in violence in Afghanistan, and for all regional actors to encourage the parties to return to negotiations without delay so that the Afghan people can achieve a durable and just political settlement that brings the peace and security they deserve.”