Taliban announced seizure of Puli-Khumri city in northern Afghanistan

MOSCOW, Aug 10. The spokesman for the radical Taliban * Zabiullah Mujahid announced the seizure of the city of Puli Khumri, the administrative center of Baghlan province in northern Afghanistan by militants. It is noted that the Taliban have seized the provincial administration, police headquarters, local intelligence agency and other institutions. They continue to push the remaining Afghan army out of the city. Taliban * Says Farah City Seizure Afghan TV channel Tolo News, citing security sources, also said government forces had left the city. Puli-Khumri is one of the ten largest cities in Afghanistan in terms of population. It is crossed by a strategically important road connecting Kabul with Mazar-i-Sharif, the largest city in the Afghan north. About a hundred kilometers south of Puli-Khumri, the Salang tunnel, built by Soviet specialists, is located, which passes in the area of the alpine pass of the same name in the Hindu Kush mountains. In Afghanistan, the confrontation between government forces and the Taliban * militants, who have taken possession of the Taliban * in recent months large territories in rural and border areas and launched an offensive against large cities. The escalation is taking place against the backdrop of the withdrawal of American troops, which the Russian Foreign Ministry called recognition of the failure of Washington's mission in Afghanistan. The Afghan military repulsed the Taliban offensive against the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. On August 6, the Taliban announced that they had captured the city of Zaranj, the administrative center of the Nimroz province in southwestern Afghanistan, and then that they had occupied the administrative centers of five more of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, including the city of Kunduz, which located 60 kilometers from the nearest border checkpoint in Tajikistan. According to a number of Western media outlets, the transfer of the city of Kunduz to the control of the rebels could mean a turning point in the development of the situation in Afghanistan. At the same time, the official Kabul denied information about the loss of control over Kunduz. * A terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation.