Taliban trying to isolate Afghan capita Kabul, Pentagon says

Taliban insurgents have seized Afghanistan’s second- and third-biggest cities, local officials said, as resistance from government forces crumbled and fears grew that an assault on the capital Kabul could be just days away, Reuters reported.

A government official confirmed that Kandahar, the economic hub of the south, was under Taliban control as US-led international forces complete their withdrawal after 20 years of war.

Herat in the west also fell to the hardline Islamist group.

“The city looks like a frontline, a ghost town,” provincial council member Ghulam Habib Hashimi said by telephone from the city of about 600,000 people near the border with Iran.

“Families have either left or are hiding in their homes.”

A U.S. defence official said there was concern that the Taliban – ousted from power in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States – could make a move on Kabul within days.

Washington on Thursday announced plans to send 3,000 additional troops to help evacuate US embassy staff, and the Pentagon said most would be in Kabul by the end of the weekend.

“Kabul is not right now in an imminent threat environment, but clearly… if you just look at what the Taliban has been doing, you can see that they are trying to isolate Kabul,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.