Afghanistan's second largest city falls to Taliban

The current and former governors of Herat, the National Directorate of Security chief, the deputy interior minister, and an Afghan Army Corps Commander have all joined the Taliban following the fall of Herat, the group claimed on Friday. 

Afghan politician and warlord Mohammad Ismail Khan was the most prominent figure to defect. Khan, who formerly served as the governor of Herat and an Afghan government minister, was seen in a Taliban video Friday speaking alongside militants.

Herat’s deputy interior minister Abdul Rahman Rahman and National Directorate of Security Chief Hasib Sediqi, along with Afghan Army Corps commander, Khyal Nabi Ahmadzai, had also defected, Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told journalists Friday.

Ahmadi also claimed “thousands” of Afghan Security Forces had joined Taliban ranks in Herat. 

CNN has not been able to independently verify all the Taliban’s defection claims but has viewed video of Mohammad Ismail Khan with the militant group. 

Herat, which is the third largest city in Afghanistan, fell to the Taliban on Friday. Currently, at least 17 provincial capitals are under Taliban control.

According to a CNN analysis, the Taliban now controls 17 of Afghanistan's 34 provincial capitals — all of which have been captured in the last week.

Four more cities fell to the Taliban on Thursday night and Friday. Several more are surrounded or under siege.

The CNN analysis is based on Taliban claims, confirmation by government and provincial officials, and visual evidence from the cities that have been taken over.

The Taliban now controls towns and territories within 100 kilometers of Kabul, including the capital of Logar province, which fell on Friday.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has announced that “In view of the changing situation in Afghanistan” the government of Pakistan has decided to relax the visa policy for foreign journalists and media workers stranded in Afghanistan.

In a statement, Ahmed said that international journalists and media workers who intend to leave Afghanistan via Pakistan are “urged to apply for a Pakistani visa.” These applications will have visas issued on a “priority basis.” 

The statement also claimed that the announcement of visa waivers by the government of Pakistan is being made "in view of the safety of journalists and media workers working in Afghanistan."

When contacted, a spokesperson of the interior ministry confirmed to CNN that visas will be issued to “foreign journalists” working for “international organisations” and this waiver doesn’t apply to Afghan journalists.

Pakistani National Security Advisor Moeed Yusuf on Connect the World:

Taliban's rapid gains in Afghanistan demonstrate that despite 20 years of military training and massive amounts of monetary investments, there is still "no real Afghan army that is able to defend its country," CNN's Fareed Zakaria says.

"We thought with just a few thousand American troops, we are somehow holding this country together. That wasn't really the case. The Taliban had decided not to fight, because when Trump agreed to [decrease] troops down to about 3,000, the Taliban agreed to negotiate. So, there was a period there where it looked like the place was calm. But the real story is that for 10 years the Taliban had been making inroads, and for 10 years the Taliban had been taking towns," he explained.

Former President Trump's decision to decrease troops in Afghanistan is why US troops are not in the position to control the situation anymore, Zakaria said.

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As the Taliban sweep through the provinces of western Afghanistan, the government has lost control of the capital of Uruzgan province, Tarin Kot. 

A local journalist told CNN Friday that the governor’s office, police headquarters and the central jail were now in the Taliban's hands. The journalist said the city had fallen to the Taliban without any fighting as tribal elders had decided not to resist the Taliban advance. 

Afghan news network TOLO quoted the governor of Uruzgan, Mohammad Omar Shizad, as saying that after days of fighting around the city, the elders had urged him to cease fire because of the likely damage of further combat.

The Taliban has not formally claimed to have captured Tarin Kot, and government officials have not confirmed the city has been lost. But videos circulating Friday showed Taliban fighters in the city. 

As the US government withdraws its troops from Afghanistan, it is also evacuating some of its Afghan interpreters, who aided the US military in their operations. However, there are still thousands of interpreters, support staff and families left behind, and they're now facing persecution at the hand of the Taliban.

Said Noor is an Afghan interpreter, who immigrated from Afghanistan, and joined the US army, but has not been able to get his family out of Afghanistan yet.

As his family sees the Taliban rapidly seizing Afghan provincial capitals, Noor says they get worried and call him.

“They just want to know about their fate — how they’re going to get out of Afghanistan, or are they going to become the next target for the Taliban? So far, I have not heard any positive feedback from the US government as far as pulling my families out of Afghanistan and bringing them into safe haven in the United States," he told CNN.

Noor described how extremely difficult it is for any interpreters, support staff and their families to leave Afghanistan.

To get to Kabul. his parents and siblings had to make a lot of excuses and make it through a lot of checkpoints manned by the Taliban.

Noor also says he is "very surprised" at how quickly the cities have fallen, including Kandahar – the country's second-biggest city – which is of particular strategic importance and was formerly a major hub for US military operations.

So far, the Taliban swept more than a dozen provincial capitals in Afghanistan.

"I'm very concerned about the situation there. And I'm sure the Taliban, pretty soon, they're going to make their way into Kabul, and it's going to be chaos,"

Afghanistan, he fears, will soon see a civil war.

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Pakistan is calling for an international plan to deal with Afghan refugees as the country sees an influx of people fleeing the Taliban after the US and other forces withdrew from the country. 

Moeed Yusuf, national security adviser to Pakistan's Prime Minister, said Friday that there needs to be an “international conversation” about managing the crisis.

Yusuf told a press conference that it was “hypocritical” of the West to criticize Pakistan for not taking more refugees in, saying Pakistan has “financed and housed” the largest number of Afghan refugees and now “simply doesn’t have the economic capacity” to house more.

Pakistan’s “generosity” to take in Afghan refugees was “unparalleled, but was not a favor to anybody.”

Regarding the situation in Afghanistan, Yusuf said that “there are chances of” the Afghan Taliban coming out with “some settlement” which will not be a “Western settlement,” and as long as that’s what the “Afghans decide and as long as it is politically settled and inclusive,” it will have to be “respected.”

Peace in Afghanistan is “non-negotiable for Pakistan” said Yusuf, adding that the aim is to at some point “offer” Pakistan’s sea routes to Central Asian countries, which can only be possible if Afghanistan is “somewhat peaceful.”

The security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated faster than President Joe Biden and his most senior national security officials had anticipated, leaving the White House rushing to stave off the worst effects of a Taliban takeover.

The Pentagon announced 3,000 troops are being deployed to assist with the drawdown of the embassy to only a "core diplomatic presence" and CNN reported the US is considering moving its embassy to the Kabul airport.

They are also bracing for Taliban atrocities to increasingly spill into public view amid deteriorating peace talks.

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The US is sending around 3,000 troops to Afghanistan to help with the departure of embassy staff, but CNN's Clarissa Ward called for caution around speculation that the Taliban would try to attack Americans leaving the country.

"I think from the Taliban perspective, it's important to underscore that what the Taliban really wants to see here is for all Americans to leave as soon as humanly possible, and I think they'll do whatever it takes to try to facilitate that," Ward said on Friday.

Afghan negotiating teams in Qatar, which includes US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and the Taliban, are currently "thrashing out deals" on how to make the withdrawal work and how to mitigate losses on all sides, "and try to get these people out as quickly as possible," she said.

"That's the primary objective for the American negotiators there," she said.

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