Kabul: Taliban forces on Friday penetrated Kandahar, Afghan’s second largest city, in a new phase of a sweep rebel attack that has captured areas throughout the country since May 1, when US forces began to withdraw.
The rebels have penetrated Kandahar, the provincial capital with the same name, for several weeks, arresting the district around it, before entering the city for the first time on Friday.
Taliban fighters entered the Seventh Police District of Kandahar on Friday, seized the house and was involved with security forces in the area, said Bahir Ahmadi, spokesman for the Governor of Kandahar.
Commandos and other special forces units fought against guerrillas well until that night, continued carefully because the area was very crowded, Ahmadi said.
The Afghan Air Force crashed into a number of Taliban positions in the neighboring district, when the rebels tried to push into the city.
The attack came less than 24 hours after President Biden defended his decision to end US involvement in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is also preparing to try to reclaim the border intersection confiscated by the Taliban.
A spokesman for Herat Province said the authorities mobilized fresh troops to reclaim the Qala Islamic Post, the biggest trade intersection between Iran and Afghanistan.
Afghan security forces have struggled to defend themselves against the Taliban, which in the range only for two months has succeeded in capturing at least 150 of the approximately 400 Afghan districts.
Kandahar City, the main at Heartland Ethnic Pashtun Afghanistan, was the birthplace of the Taliban during the country’s civil war in the 1990s.