(AFP): The Taliban today (Tuesday) captured Afghanistan’s main border crossing with Tajikistan, with security forces abandoning their posts and some fleeing across the frontier.
Kunduz provincial council member Khaliddin Hakmi, in a statement, said, “Unfortunately this morning and after an hour of fighting the Taliban captured Shir Khan port and the town and all the border check posts with Tajikistan.”
An army officer told an international news agency, “We were forced to leave all check posts and some of our soldiers crossed the border into Tajikistan. By the morning, Taliban fighters were everywhere, hundreds of them.” Amruddin Wali, another provincial council member, said officials “lost contact” with the area on Monday night.
Meanwhile, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed the insurgents had seized the crossing. “Our Mujahideen are in full control of Shir Khan Bandar and all the border crossings with Tajikistan in Kunduz,” he told the agency.
The seizure of Shir Khan Bandar, about 50 kilometres from Kunduz city, is the most significant gain for the Taliban since the US began its troop withdrawal. The crossing is marked by a 700-metre US-funded bridge that opened in 2007 with the aim of boosting trade between the central Asian neighbours.
“There were 150 trucks loaded with goods in Shir Khan Bandar when it fell and we don’t know what’s happened to them. It would be a huge financial loss,” said Massoud Wahdat, a spokesman for the Kunduz provincial chamber of commerce and industries.
Fierce fighting between the Taliban and Afghan government forces has taken place on the outskirts of three provincial capitals in the northern provinces of Faryab, Balkh and Kunduz provinces in recent days, officials said.
The United Nations’ envoy for Afghanistan has asserted the Taliban had taken more than 50 of 370 districts and was positioned to take control of provincial capitals. With a significant population of Pakhtuns, Kunduz had been a stronghold of the Taliban before they seized power in the 1990s.
