Taliban ‘takes over Jalalabad’ and warns US to cease airstrikes or it will descend on Kabul

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The Taliban have now taken control of Jalalabad, spelling the fall of the last major Afghan city other than Kabul to the extremist fighters and leaving the isolated capital increasingly vulnerable to a takeover.  

An Afghan official confirmed the key eastern city fell under Taliban control without a fight early Sunday morning when the governor surrendered, saying it was ‘the only way to save civilian lives.’ 

Its fall has also given the Taliban control of a road leading to the Pakistan city of Peshawar, one of the main highways into landlocked Afghanistan.  

Jalalabad is close to the Pakistani border and just 80 miles from Kabul – the Afghanistan capital home to more than four million people and now the only remaining major city still under government control. Besides Kabul, just seven other provincial capitals out of the country’s 34 are yet to fall to the Taliban.

Concerns are mounting over how long Kabul can stave off the Taliban insurgents as they have captured the northern stronghold of Mazar-i-Sharif, the second-largest city Kandahar and third-largest city Herat all within the last 48 hours.  

The Taliban are now closing in on the capital from all sides, controlling territories to the North, South, East and West and advancing to just seven miles south of the city. 

Hoda Ahmadi, a lawmaker from Logar province, told The Associated Press that the Taliban have reached the Char Asyab district on the outskirts of the capital, which was gripped by blackouts, communications outages and street fighting overnight Saturday as the country descends into chaos. 

A US defense official has warned it could be only a matter of days before the insurgent fighters take control of Kabul. Just last week, US intelligence estimates expected the city to be able to hold out for at least three months. 

As the Taliban advance accelerates, the US is scrambling to evacuate more than 10,000 American citizens from the capital, with officials said to be trying to strike a deal for Taliban fighters not to descend on Kabul until the US can pull everyone out.

However, a senior US official told the New York Times the Taliban have warned the US it must cease airstrikes or else its extremist fighters will move in. 

Joe Biden has vowed that any action that puts Americans at risk ‘will be met with a swift and strong US military response.’ 

This comes as:

The first batch of diplomats from the US Embassy in Kabul started being evacuated out Sunday morningJoe Biden increased the number of troops being sent to evacuate Americans to 5,000 The president defended the withdrawal of US troops and blamed Donald Trump for a deal that left the warlords ‘in the strongest position militarily since 2001’ The Biden administration will hold a virtual briefing with House members Sunday following a request by House Speaker Nancy PelosiTaliban fighters invaded the palatial home of Afghan warlord and US ally General Rashid Dostum Saturday The Taliban took control of the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif Saturday – one day after taking the cities of Kandahar and Herat 

A total of 5,000 US troops are being deployed to help safely evacuate State Department staff from the US Embassy in Kabul with some of the first diplomats starting to fly out early Sunday. 

Two US officials told Reuters a ‘small batch’ of people had already left while most staff were ready to go as soon as they were able.   

The evacuation of embassy staff was originally slated to take 72 hours but officials have ramped up efforts to get all Embassy staff out within the next 36 hours as the militant assault picks up pace, sources told CBS News. 

Only a small number of key personnel including top decision-makers, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security Service and top decision-makers and security engineers able to destroy sensitive information will remain.  

All US diplomats should be out of the country entirely by the end of August, the sources said. 

The US military is preparing to lower the American flag over the Embassy – if the State Department gives the order – signaling its closure. 

Biden announced Saturday he was increasing the number of US troops being deployed to protect the withdrawal from the US embassy to 5,000. 

Around 1,000 service members are already on the ground and 3,000 more were already being sent next week, before he announced the deployment of an extra 1,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg as the situation escalated Saturday. 

Other western governments are also rapidly withdrawing their embassy staff, citizens and Afghans who worked for them from the country with the British ambassador set to leave by Sunday evening.

Meanwhile, thousands of locals have fled to Kabul to try to escape the Taliban as they have taken control of their home provinces. 

This has pushed the city’s four million population higher and forced refugees to set up home in makeshift camps around the city.  

The Afghan army has vowed to defend the capital from the Taliban who are demanding that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani step down – something he is refusing to do. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks with Ghani Saturday to discuss the ‘urgency of ongoing diplomatic and political efforts to reduce the violence,’ the State Department said in a statement. 

‘The Secretary emphasized the United States’ commitment to a strong diplomatic and security relationship with the Government of Afghanistan and our continuing support for the people of Afghanistan.’ 

A virtual briefing will be held Sunday morning between Biden Administration officials and House members following a request by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

It comes as the Biden administration has come under fire over the advancement of the Taliban in Afghanistan which many are blaming on the American troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Biden defended the withdrawal Saturday and blamed predecessor Donald Trump for a deal that left the warlords ‘in the strongest position militarily since 2001’.  

‘One more year, or five more years, of US military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country. And an endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me,’ he said in a statement.  

Biden also hit out at predecessor Trump for the deal with the Taliban that led to the recent withdrawal.

He said: ‘When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor—which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019—that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001.

‘Shortly before he left office, he also drew US forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500.

‘When I became President, I faced a choice—follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our forces and our allies’ forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict. 

‘I was the fourth President to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan—two Republicans, two Democrats. I would not, and will not, pass this war onto a fifth.’  

The president has been slammed by several Republicans, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy hitting out at the ‘complete mismanagement’ of the Afghanistan withdrawal. 

McCarthy said: ‘The White House has no discernible plan other than pleading with the Taliban. The bungled withdrawal, reminiscent of his failed withdrawal from Iraq, is an embarrassment to our nation.’

‘President Biden must continue to provide the close air support necessary for the Afghan government to protect themselves from the Taliban and make sure al Qaeda and ISIS do not gain a foothold due to the Biden administration’s disastrous policies.’  

Former CIA director and former commander of US and International Forces in Afghanistan David Petraeus also blasted the situation in Afghanistan ‘disastrous’, ‘catastrophic’ and an ‘an enormous national security set back’ for the world. 

Petraeus said on The Rita Cosby Show on WABC Radio the US withdrawal had caused a domino effect in the country. 

‘This is an enormous national security set back and it is on the verge of getting much worse unless we decide to take really significant action,’ Petraeus said. 

‘We are now in a situation where the Taliban are trying to encircle Kabul – a city of 5 of 6 million before hundreds of thousands of refugees starting flooding into it.’   

Senator Tom Cotton tweeted that the ‘fiasco’ was ‘predictable’ and had ‘humiliated’ the US. 

‘The fiasco in Afghanistan wasn’t just predictable, it was predicted. Joe Biden’s ill-planned retreat has now humiliated America and put at risk thousands of Americans left in Kabul,’ he said.

‘At a minimum, President Biden must unleash American air power to destroy every Taliban fighter in the vicinity of Kabul until we can save our fellow Americans. Anything less will further confirm Joe Biden’s impotence to the world.’

Senator Mitt Romney posted that he could not understand why the US had pulled out of the country ‘without an effective strategy to defend our partners.’ 

‘I understand but disagree with those who felt we should leave Afghanistan; I cannot understand why it has been done with such tragic human cost; without an effective strategy to defend our partners; and with inestimable shock to our nation’s credibility, reliability, and honor,’ he tweeted Saturday.

Former Secretary of State for Trump Mike Pompeo blasted the Biden administration, claiming the Trump administration had a plan for bringing troops out.

‘Our administration had a model of deterrence in place as we prepared to bring the soldiers, sailors, marines, everybody who is on the ground there, home,’ he tweeted.

‘It looks like the Biden Administration has not been able to execute this.’ 

Taliban fighters invaded the palatial home of top Afghan warlord and US ally General Rashid Dostum Saturday after taking control of the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. 

Dostum was a key US ally during the 20 year campaign against the Taliban and famously fought with the Special Forces ‘horse soldiers’ shortly after 9/11.

Before 9/11 he was an infamous warlord who was known for crushing prisoners alive beneath the wheels of a tank and in recent years he was a senior figure in the Afghan National Army. He is believed to have escaped.    

On Saturday, fighters wielding guns were filmed walking Dostum’s home in Mazar-i-Sharif around the luxurious oval-shaped room, filled with chandeliers and gold furniture. 

The fighters videoed themselves lounging on Dostum’s gold furniture, posing in chairs and inspecting his golden tea set. 

Meanwhile, videos from Kandahar showed Taliban fighters seizing grounded US-made Blackhawk helicopters and taking to the air in Russian aircraft after turning their crew.   

Mazar-e-Sharif, the country’s fourth largest city, fell Saturday despite Afghan forces and two powerful former warlords vowing to defend it.

The move handed the insurgents control over all of northern Afghanistan. 

‘The army is not fighting. It is only Atta (Muhammad) Noor and (Marshal Abdul Rashid) Dostum’s militias defending the city,’ Mohammad Ibrahim Khairandesh, a former provincial council member who now lives in the city, told The New York Times. 

‘The situation is critical, and it’s getting worse.’      

‘We are probably experiencing the most massive, brutal and opportunistic military campaign of violence and terror, by the Taliban, in the history of our country,’ Afghan Foreign Minister Mohammed Haneef Atmar said at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute earlier this week.

The situation appears to be dire as insurgent forces tightened their grip around Kabul after warlords captured two more provinces on Saturday and moved within seven miles of the city.  

Herds of civilians who escaped the violence flooded the streets of Kabul and set up camps while diplomats work with other countries to see who’s willing to take in Afghan refugees.  

The State Department is in talks with several other countries to house US-affiliated Afghan refugees, and Canada has already welcomed 20,000 Afghan refugees threatened by the Taliban, the IRCC – Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada – said in a Twitter statement. 

So far, about 1,200 Afghans have been evacuated to the United States and that number is set to rise to 3,500 in the coming weeks under ‘Operation Allies Refuge,’ with some going to a U.S. military base in Virginia to finalize their paperwork and others directly to US hosts, Reuters reported.

A deal to house about 8,000 Afghans in Qatar, which hosts a large US military base, has been close for weeks, a US official told Reuters, although no official deal has been announced. 

Afghan President Ghani addressed the nation in a minute-long video statement Saturday morning (US time) that was translated into English. 

‘Afghanistan is in serious danger of instability,’ Ghani said.

‘Though I know that you are worried about your current situation and your future, I assure you that as your president, my focus is prevent the expansion of instability, violence and displacement of my people,’ Ghani said.

‘As part of a historical mission, I will do my best to stop this imposed conflict on the Afghan people to result in further killing of innocent people, loss of your achievements of the last 20 years, destruction of public property and prolonged instability.’ 

He said he’s engaging with Afghan and international leaders, and consultations are ‘urgently ongoing and the results will soon be shared.’ 

This was his first public comment since the Taliban demanded he resign in exchange for a reduction in violence. 

Between Friday and Saturday, the Taliban made major advances in what’s already been an efficient takeover of the country. 

They captured Herat and Kandahar, which are the country’s second- and third-largest cities, as well as the Logar province, just south of Kabul. 

The Taliban continued its swift movement towards Kabul by capturing Mazar-i-Sharif. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has called for Biden to launch US airstrikes against the Taliban after speaking to to US Ambassador to Afghanistan Adela Raz on Friday.  

The Kentucky Republican said in a statement that ‘this debacle was not only foreseeable, it was foreseen.’ 

‘With that said, it is not too late to prevent the Taliban from overrunning Kabul,’ McConnell said. 

‘The Administration should move quickly to hammer Taliban advances with air strikes, provide critical support to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) defending the capital and prevent the seemingly imminent fall of the city.

 ‘If they fail to do so, the security threat to the United States will assuredly grow and the humanitarian cost to innocent Afghans will be catastrophic.’ 

But it might be too late. Axios is reporting that the Biden administration is preparing for the fall of Kabul, despite the president’s statements in recent days showing confidence in the Afghan military to ward of insurgents.  

Taliban forces began reclaiming land they lost during the United State’s 20-year occupation months before Biden announced his plans to withdraw troops by September 11. 

The preceding Trump administration negotiated the terms of a U.S. withdrawal in talks with the Taliban last year. 

Between May and June, the Taliban recaptured 50 of Afghanistan’s 421 districts, Deborah Lyons, the UN’s special envoy on Afghanistan, told Newsweek.

But the troop drawn down sped up the take over, and now the Taliban has a vice grip around the capital. 

‘Clearly from their actions, it appears as if they are trying to get Kabul isolated,’ Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, referring to the Taliban’s speedy and efficient takedown of major provincial capitals this past week. 

Kirby declined to discuss the Pentagon’s assessment of whether the Taliban will converge on Kabul.  

Currently, there are 650 American troops still in the country to help protect the nation’s diplomatic presence, according to the Associated Press, but there’s no plan for how long the 5,000 Marines and Army infantrymen will remain in the country and there appears to be no appetite from either party to engage the Taliban. 

‘This is a temporary mission with a narrow focus,’ Kirby said. 

Stephen Biddle, a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University, told The Associated Press that sending the troops is a morale killer for the Afghan military. 

‘The message that sent to Afghans is: ‘The city of Kabul is going to fall so fast that we can’t organize an orderly withdrawal from the embassy,” Biddle told the news outlet. 

This suggests to Afghans that the Americans see little future for the government and that ‘this place could be toast within hours.’

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Meanwhile, Biden was on his way to Camp David in Maryland on Friday but didn’t speak to reporters. 

He’s been taking criticism at home and abroad for pulling the troops out of the country.  

Ata Mohammed Noor, an Afghan warlord and key US ally during the occupation, said the withdrawal was ‘irresponsible’ and the sudden exit weakened the Afghanistan military, which Noor said is not in a position to ward off insurgents, Newsweek reported.    

He has since warned about a possible civil war.  

Within the US, several Republican leaders, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, have ripped Biden for this decision. 

Friday night, McCarthy tweeted, ‘Tonight we held a call with Afghanistan’s Ambassador to the US to discuss the deteriorating situation. I remain deeply concerned with the Biden Admin’s mismanagement of their bungled withdrawal. Much like his failed withdrawal from Iraq, it is an embarrassment to our nation.’ 

Biden continued to defend his decision to pull the troops out of Afghanistan.  

On Tuesday, the commander-in-chief said the Afghan military is more powerful than the Taliban.

‘The Taliban is not the North Vietnamese Army. They’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability,’ Biden said this week from the White House. ‘There’s going to be no circumstances where you’re going to see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the United States from Afghanistan.’

The president alluded to the $1trillion and 20 years worth of investments to train and arm the Afghan forces. 

‘And Afghan leaders have to come together. We lost to death and injury, thousands of American personnel. They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation,’ Biden said. 

The US is not the only country pulling out of Afghanistan. 

European countries – including Britain, Germany, Denmark and Spain – all announced the withdrawal of personnel from their respective embassies on Friday.

For Kabul residents and the tens of thousands who have sought refuge there in recent weeks, the overwhelming mood was one of confusion and fear of what lies ahead.

‘We don’t know what is going on,’ one resident – Khairddin Logari – told AFP.

The Taliban has reportedly been ruthless when during its takeover.  

Taliban fighters are going door-to-door and forcibly marrying girls as young as 12 and forcing them into sex slavery as they seize vast swathes of the Afghanistan government forces.

Jihadist commanders have ordered imams in areas they have captured to bring them lists of unmarried women aged from 12 to 45 for their soldiers to marry because they view them as ‘qhanimat’ or ‘spoils of war’ – to be divided up among the victors. 

They’re also killing Afghan government troops who surrender, the US claimed. 

Video taken in Faryab province last month appeared to show Taliban fighters massacring 22 Afghan commandos after they had surrendered, including the son of a well-known general. 

Hundreds of government troops have surrendered to the Taliban since fighting escalated in May with the withdrawal of US troops – some without firing a shot, others after being cut off and surrounded with little or no chance of reinforcement or resupply from the government in Kabul.

The scale and speed of the Taliban advance has shocked Afghans and the US-led alliance that poured billions into the country after toppling the Taliban in the wake of the September 11 attacks nearly 20 years ago.

Days before a final US withdrawal ordered by President Joe Biden, individual soldiers, units and even whole divisions have surrendered – handing the insurgents even more vehicles and military hardware to fuel their lightning advance.

Despite the frantic evacuation efforts, the Biden administration continues to insist that a complete Taliban takeover is not inevitable, as McConnell believes. 

‘Kabul is not right now in an imminent threat environment,’ Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Friday, while acknowledging that Taliban fighters were ‘trying to isolate’ the city. 

Officials took pains to avoid describing the operation as an evacuation as they announced that the State Department would reduce its civilian footprint of 4,000 people to a ‘core diplomatic presence.’ 

But that was before Saturday’s news that the Taliban have moved to within seven miles of Kabul, which has triggered fresh questions about whether Biden had been right to announce a complete withdrawal. 

Officials insist they always had contingency plans to help American staff leave safely, but critics said the result has been chaos.

But even allies have expressed concern. British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said the Trump administration had forged a ‘rotten deal’ with the Taliban that risked allowing terrorists to return.

‘I’ve been pretty blunt about it publicly and that’s quite a rare thing when it comes to United States decisions, but strategically it causes a lot of problems and as an international community, it’s very difficult for what we’re seeing today,’ he told Sky News.

The Taliban offensive has accelerated at the end of the week with the capture of Herat in the north and Kandahar – the group’s spiritual heartland – in the south.

Kandahar resident Abdul Nafi told AFP the city was calm after government forces abandoned it for the sanctuary of military facilities outside, where they were negotiating terms of surrender.

‘I came out this morning, I saw Taliban white flags in most squares of the city,’ he said. ‘I thought it might be the first day of Eid.’

Eid is one of two celebrations in the Islamic faith. 

Pro-Taliban social media accounts have boasted of the vast spoils of war captured by the insurgents – posting photos of armored vehicles, heavy weapons, and even a drone seized by their fighters at abandoned military bases.