Taliban seizes important dam in Afghanistan while fighting is on | Taliban Stories

Dahla Dam provides irrigated agriculture to farmers through canals and drinking water in Kandahar province.

The Taliban have captured the second largest dam in Afghanistan after months of fierce fighting at their former Kandahar headquarters, the group and officials said, as US troops began the departure of his troops from the country 20 years later.

Dahla Dam, which provides irrigated agriculture to many rivers and drinking water in the province’s capital, was now in the hands of the Taliban, officials told AFP on Thursday.

“Talanda Dahla blood in Arghandab,” Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP.

Haji Gulbuddin, the ambassador for the nearby province, confirmed that the pool “is now under the control of the Taliban”.

“Our soldiers … asked for more but failed,” he said.

The seizure comes after riots broke out in the nearby Helmand region this week, just days after US troops began evacuating their remaining troops from Afghanistan.

Kandahar water department chief Tooryalay Mahboobi told AFP that the Taliban would soon warn Dahla workers not to go to work.

Last month militants blew up a bridge connecting a pool to nearby areas, an AFP reporter in Kandahar said.

Dahla was built by the US about 70 years ago to supply irrigation water to about 7 Kandahar districts.

In 2019, the Asian Development Bank approved about $ 350m to be spent on small-scale water conservation projects.

The region has been embroiled in controversy in the region over the past six months, but officials announced in April that the site had been vacated.

Before returning, the Taliban had planted bombs throughout the area – including settlements – officials said.

In nearby Helmand, thousands of people have fled their homes in the face of Taliban insurgency.

U.S. military aircraft have been supporting Air Afghan forces even though foreign troops have been released.

The U.S. was expected to pull out all troops by May 1 in an alliance with the Taliban last year, but Washington has pushed back. back in the day until September 11 – a move that angered the military.

The release of foreign troops comes despite efforts to establish a peace agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban.