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Taliban fighters told to wait at gates of Kabul: spokesman
"The Islamic Emirate instructs all its forces to stand at the gates of Kabul, not to try to enter the city," a spokesman for the Taliban tweeted, although some residents reported insurgents had peacefully entered some outer suburbs.
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Taliban fighters sit on a vehicle along the street in Jalalabad province on August 15, 2021. (AFP/AFP)
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aliban fighters were ordered Sunday to wait at the gates of Kabul and not enter the city, an insurgent spokesman said, after the complete collapse of the country's security forces.
"The Islamic Emirate instructs all its forces to stand at the gates of Kabul, not to try to enter the city," a spokesman for the Taliban tweeted, although some residents reported insurgents had peacefully entered some outer suburbs.
The announcement came hours after the Taliban captured the key eastern city of Jalalabad and the northern anti-Taliban bastion of Mazar-i-Sharif -- extending an astonishing rout of government forces and warlord militias achieved in just 10 days.
Pro-Taliban social media accounts boasted that its fighters were moving rapidly through the outlying districts of Kabul province, with the outskirts of the city in close proximity.
"Don't panic! Kabul is safe!" tweeted Matin Bek, President Ashraf Ghani's chief of staff.
Ghani's government appeared to be left with few options -- either prepare for a bloody fight for the capital or capitulate.
The loss of Mazar-i-Sharif and Jalalabad were huge back-to-back blows for Ghani and his government.
It left the Taliban -- who have fighters less than an hour's drive from Kabul -- holding all the cards in any negotiated surrender of the capital.
On Saturday Ghani sought to project authority with a national address in which he spoke of "re-mobilising" the military while seeking a "political solution" to the crisis.
The scale and speed of their advance have shocked Afghans and the US-led alliance that poured billions into the country after toppling the insurgents in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
President Joe Biden ordered the deployment of an additional 1,000 US troops to help secure the emergency evacuation from Kabul of embassy employees and thousands of Afghans who worked for American forces and now fear Taliban reprisals.
That was on top of the 3,000 American soldiers deployed in recent days, and 1,000 left in-country after Biden announced in May that the final withdrawal of the 20-year military presence in Afghanistan would be completed by September 11.
That decision has come under increased scrutiny given the collapse of the Afghan armed forces, but he insisted Saturday there was no choice.
"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," Biden said.
