Taliban captures first provincial center in Afghanistan, a symbolic victory

Taliban militants captured the provincial center of Afghanistan's western province of Nimroz on Friday. The militant group also assassinated a senior government spokesman in Kabul, and overran parts of the Jawzjan provincial center in northern Afghanistan before being pushed back by the Afghan military and uprising forces, according to Afghan officials. 

The capture of Zaranj, the first provincial center, is a symbolic victory for the Taliban, which is fighting to take power after the group signed a withdrawal deal with the Americans in 2020 and the Biden administration vowed a withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of August. "The Afghan forces left the city without any small resistance," said an Afghan official who spoke on the condition that he would not be named because his family was still in Zaranj. "The governor's building, the police headquarters, the airport were all handed over to the Taliban without a single shot being fired. Only intelligence forces fought for two hours before they escaped to a nearby district."