[The only other city to have fallen to the Taliban since they were driven from power in 2001 was Kunduz, in the far north, which the insurgents briefly occupied twice, in 2015 and 2016. Neither Farah nor Kunduz were as strategically important as Ghazni, the capital of Ghazni Province.]
By Rod Nordland and Fahim Abed
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A
member of the Afghan security forces keeping watch in Ghazni Province in April.
Capturing
the city of Ghazni would be the Taliban’s most important
strategic
gain in years. Credit Zakeria Hashimi/Agence France-
Presse
— Getty Images
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KABUL,
Afghanistan — Taliban
insurgents entered the southeastern Afghan city of Ghazni before dawn on
Friday, and within hours they claimed to have much of the provincial capital
under their control. If confirmed, the rout would be the insurgents’ most important
strategic gain in years.
Witnesses and health officials feared the
casualty toll would be high. Zahir Shah Nikmal, head of the provincial
department of public health, said 16 bodies and 40 wounded people had been
brought to hospitals so far. Almost all were members of the security forces, he
said, and officials were trying to arrange evacuations by helicopter for the
critically wounded.
Government officials denied the city had
fallen, but they conceded that the insurgents were within 300 yards of the
governor’s office and police headquarters.
“Fighting is ongoing but the whole city has
not been taken by the Taliban,” Mohammad Arif Noori, the spokesman for Ghazni’s
governor, said by telephone. “We will not allow them to take the city.”
It was the second determined assault on an
Afghan city this year. In May, insurgents overran the western city of Farah,
but they left a day later amid counterattacks from the Afghan government and
American airstrikes.
The only other city to have fallen to the
Taliban since they were driven from power in 2001 was Kunduz, in the far north,
which the insurgents briefly occupied twice, in 2015 and 2016. Neither Farah
nor Kunduz were as strategically important as Ghazni, the capital of Ghazni
Province.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman,
said on Twitter that the insurgents had infiltrated every part of the city.
“Hundreds of Mujahedeen entered the city, captured the police headquarters and
all six police districts and an important military base, Bala Hesar,” Mr.
Mujahid said in an emailed statement.
“Attacks are underway on the governor’s
office, the N.D.S. headquarters and other government offices,” he said, using
the acronym for the National Directorate for Security, the Afghan intelligence
agency.
Government officials denied a Taliban claim
that the insurgents had shot down helicopters, but confirmed that two had been
forced to make emergency landings. They said both of the two helipads in the
city were under attack and evacuation helicopters were struggling to land.
Residents reached by telephone in several
neighborhoods said that heavy fighting was ongoing around them.
“Taliban are fighting with their whole power,
they brought fighters from as many districts and provinces as they could,” said
one resident, Nasir Ahmad Faqiri, a member of the provincial council. “There
are Taliban militants in all roads and streets of the city, but they are facing
strong resistance from government forces.”
Ghazni, which the Afghan government says has
a population of 280,000, sits on Highway 1, the important north-south route
between Kabul, the capital, and Kandahar, the country’s second-largest city.
Travelers in Kandahar on Friday reported being turned back because the
insurgents had blocked the highway.
The American military said it had sent
helicopters to support Afghan troops in Ghazni, and that it had carried out one
airstrike, using a drone.
Afghan forces “held their ground and maintain
control of all government centers,” said Lt. Col. Martin L. O’Donnell, a
spokesman for the American military in Afghanistan. “This is yet another failed
Taliban attempt to seize terrain, which will result in yet another eye-catching
but strategically inconsequential headline.”
If the Taliban took Ghazni and held it, they
would essentially have cut off the traditional Taliban homelands in the south
from northern Afghanistan and the capital. Mr. Mujahid said the insurgents had
closed Highway 1 to prevent reinforcements from reaching Ghazni.
Brig. Gen. Mohammad Radmanish, the spokesman
for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, denied Ghazni was under any serious threat.
“It is just propaganda by the Taliban. The whole city is under the control of
Afghan forces,” he said. Six Afghan soldiers had been killed in the fighting,
he said.
Reinforcements began arriving in the city,
but the government was hampered in carrying out airstrikes because the
insurgents were operating in civilian neighborhoods.
“Commando forces are responding to the
Taliban attack but we are not carrying out airstrikes to prevent civilian
casualties,” said Mr. Noori, the governor’s spokesman. He accused the Taliban
of using the civilian population as human shields. Eight civilians had been
wounded so far, he said.
Ghazni’s police chief, Col. Farid Ahmad
Mashal, took to Facebook to say that the insurgents had been defeated, posing for
photos with bodies of dead insurgent fighters in the streets.
“All areas are in our control,” Colonel
Mashal said in a video, as gunshots were heard in the background. “Members of
the Parliament, all the people have picked up arms with us.”
Many areas of Ghazni Province have been
heavily contested by the insurgents in recent years, but this was the first
serious attempt to take the provincial capital.
Arif Rahmani, a member of Parliament from
Ghazni, said the government had not acted on months of repeated warnings that
the Taliban were amassing around and inside the city. He said that while the
police had shown brave resistance since the assault began, they were low on
ammunition and food and were struggling with communications, with the Taliban
having shut down phone networks.
“The reality is that 70 percent of the burden
of the fighting in Ghazni is on the shoulders of the police, and their
structure has long since fallen apart,” Mr. Rahmani said.
A New York Times reporter who visited Ghazni
in May found residents complaining that many Taliban insurgents were already
inside the city, and even collecting taxes from residents. Many expressed
concern that the city would soon be attacked.
The Ghazni assault comes at a critical stage
in the Afghan war, when President Ashraf Ghani and the Americans have been
trying to persuade the Taliban to enter peace talks.
After a successful three-day cease-fire in
June that was observed scrupulously by both sides, many Afghans had been hoping
for another cease-fire during the Eid al-Adha holiday later this month. But Mr.
Ghani was already facing political opposition to another such cease-fire, and
the scenes from Ghazni were unlikely to help his cause.