Kabul: The Taliban have claimed the capture of Afghanistan’s second-largest city, Kandahar and key southern city of Lashkar Gah.
Hours before that the United States announced that it will send troops to evacuate personnel from the US embassy in Kabul. The Pentagon said 3,000 US troops would be deployed to Kabul within the next 24 to 48 hours and stressed that they would not be used to launch attacks against the Taliban.
Several cities fell on Thursday in the most dramatic string of victories yet.
The insurgents have moved quickly, seizing new territories as US and other foreign troops withdraw after 20 years of military operations.
Within hours of each other on Thursday some of Afghanistan’s most important cities were captured – Herat, Ghazni and Qala-I-Naw came under Taliban control.
Meanwhile, the US embassy in Kabul said it was hearing reports that the Taliban were executing Afghan troops who were surrendering, saying it was “deeply disturbing and could constitute war crimes”.
