Taliban seizes border crossings between Afghanistan and Iran: Officials | Taliban Stories

As the group continues to move forward with the withdrawal of foreign troops, journalists say some Afghan security forces have fled to Iran.

Taliban freedom fighters have seized key territory in western Afghanistan, which borders Iran, Afghanistan officials say, as the military continues to advance rapidly across the country.

Last week, the Taliban seized territories bordering five countries – Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, China and Pakistan – while foreign forces completed their 20-year intervention and security was tightened.

Fighting between Taliban fighters and Afghan government forces was also raging in the northern region of Balkh on the border with Uzbekistan.

Two security officials told the Reuters news agency not to remain anonymous that Islam Qala’s border crossing with Iran, in Herat province, had fallen into the hands of the Taliban and that Afghan security forces and refugees had fled the border.

Al Alalam TV, an Arab activist in Iran, also claimed that Afghan troops had invaded Iran by crossing the border to flee the Taliban.

Tariq Arian, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s interior ministry, denied the reports and said the border crossing was still in the hands of government forces.

Reuters calls to the embassy and police were not answered.

Another defender said Taliban freedom fighters had seized five provinces in Herat without fighting.

Earlier this week, more than 1,000 Afghans fled to Tajikistan while the Taliban took over the northern part of Badakhshan, which also crosses China and Pakistan.

Afghanistan’s security ministry says Afghan government forces earlier on Thursday restored power to Qala-e-Naw, the capital of the western state of Badghis, which was once he was startled and the Taliban on Wednesday.

Hundreds of troops were deployed in the area, the ministry said, adding that fighting continued along the Qala-e-Naw border, where the Taliban had already seized control of the city’s main government buildings, including the police headquarters.

“The city is full of people [back] under our direction and working against Taliban outside the city, “said Fawad Aman, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense.

The ministry said 69 Taliban militants had been killed in the fighting on the outskirts of Qala-e-Naw – the first regional headquarters for which the troops had joined the strike.

The entire Badghis region is in the hands of the Taliban. Western security officials say the Taliban have seized more than 100 provinces in Afghanistan.

The Taliban have more than 200 counties in 34 states, half of which are state. Larger cities are still under state control.

The group has been divided over the past few weeks but has been pushing back since the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, ending an intervention that began with the overthrow of the Taliban government in 2001.

The Taliban’s progress has been particularly impressive, in the northern part of the country where it was formerly protected.

The causes of negotiations between the government and the group cannot be the same. Taliban envoys arrived in Iran on Wednesday and were in Moscow on Thursday.

Defending the decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden He said On Thursday he did not expect the Taliban to take over the country and that he believed in Afghan troops.

“We are ending the longest war in America,” he said.