KABUL—The Taliban seized the capital of Nimroz province along the Iranian border Friday, the first such takeover since the insurgents launched an offensive to take advantage of the U.S. troop withdrawal, and assassinated the head of the Afghan government’s media office in Kabul.
The Taliban have swept through much of Afghanistan’s countryside since President Biden announced the U.S. troop withdrawal in April. Though the Taliban have pierced the defenses of some provincial capitals during this offensive, Friday’s fall of Zaranj, the capital of Nimroz in southwest Afghanistan, marked a major milestone.
Videos circulating on social media showed Taliban fighters loitering near the open gates of the Nimroz governor’s residence and others sitting atop captured Humvees. One resident reached by phone said the Taliban took the city without a fight and that the provincial governor and senior officials had fled. Many of them headed over the nearby Iranian border as the Taliban advanced, said the resident, who declined to give her name for fear of retribution.
“I am afraid,” she said. “I cannot go out because the Taliban are in the city and who knows if they come and search houses.”
Though sparsely populated, Nimroz is an important trade gateway with Iran. In recent weeks, the Taliban captured most of Afghanistan’s international border crossings, leaving only a handful of customs points under tenuous government control. | Recommended news
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