Taliban seizes Herat, Ghazni as battle for Kandahar rages on

The armed group has now overrun 11 provincial capitals in Afghanistan, including the third-largest city, Herat.

The Taliban is now in control of Herat, Afghanistan’s third-largest city and a strategic provincial capital in the country’s west, hours after it seized Ghazni, while “intense fighting” rages between the armed fighters and government forces in Kandahar city. Herat’s fall on Thursday marked the biggest prize yet for the Taliban, who have taken 11 of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals as part of a weeklong blitz, leaving the capital Kabul increasingly isolated. It further squeezed the country’s embattled government just weeks before the US-led foreign forces complete their withdrawal after 20 years.