Taliban fighters take city of Lashkar Gah following capture of Kandahar and Herat

Published

4 years ago

August 12, 2021

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Taliban fighters have taken the Afghan city of Lashkar Gah, following their capture of Kandahar and Herat, as the security situation in the country rapidly deteriorates.

A police official confirmed the capture of the city in the southern province of Helmand, with Afghan officials moving to Camp Bastion and about 1,500 soldiers surrendering.

If follows the announcement by Defence Secretary Ben Wallace on Thursday morning that the UK is sending military personnel to help evacuate Britons from Afghanistan.

He said 600 troops will be sent to Kabul on a “short-term basis” in response to the increasing violence across the country. They are expected to arrive in the coming days.

Taliban forces took Kandahar and Herat – Afghanistan’s second and third-largest cities respectively – on Thursday and US intelligence warned Kabul could fall within 90 days.

The capture of Kandahar marks the biggest prize yet for the Taliban, which has now taken 12 of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals.

Officials said Kandahar fell last night and that government officials and their entourage managed to flee to the airport to escape the city by air.

Taliban fighters rushed past the Great Mosque in the historic city of Herat – which dates to 500 BC and was once a spoil of Alexander the Great – and seized government buildings.

Mr Wallace said: “I have authorised the deployment of additional military personnel to support the diplomatic presence in Kabul, assist British nationals to leave the country and support the relocation of former Afghan staff who risked their lives serving alongside us.

“The security of British nationals, British military personnel and former Afghan staff is our first priority. We must do everything we can to ensure their safety.”

The Ministry of Defence has characterised the move as part of the ongoing withdrawal of NATO forces, but in reality it is an unplanned emergency response to the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan as the Taliban rampages across the country.

The British soldiers will also assist with the acceleration of the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy.

“This will help to make sure interpreters and other Afghan staff who risked their lives working alongside UK forces in Afghanistan can relocate to the UK as soon as possible,” the Ministry of Defence said in a statement.

The number of staff working at the British Embassy in Kabul has also been significantly reduced to a “core group”, the government has announced – the remaining staff will focus on consular help to anyone wanting to leave the country.

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The British ambassador to Afghanistan, Sir Laurie Bristow, will remain in Kabul but will relocate to a more secure location.

The US has also announced that it is deploying some 3,000 additional troops to help the departure of its embassy staff.

The American embassy will remain open, although personnel will be reduced to a “core diplomatic presence”.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani last night – telling him the US “remains invested in the security and stability of Afghanistan”.

Analysis by Martha Kelner, US correspondent

This is fast becoming a chaotic end to America’s 20-year presence in Afghanistan as 3,000 troops are rushed in to facilitate the extraction of US embassy personnel from the capital, Kabul.

Understandably, many people here are now recalling the 1975 fall of Saigon when US staff were airlifted to safety from the roof of the embassy, a situation the US was desperate to avoid.

When President Joe Biden announced the withdrawal of US troops in April, the biggest fear was that provincial cities in Afghanistan would fall one after the other – and that is exactly what is happening as the Taliban advances at a speed even the most gloomy predictions did not forecast.

Intelligence officials here suggested privately in June that Kabul could be taken within six months. The timeline was later revised to 90 days, but the current situation and the lack of resistance being put up in many areas to repel the Taliban means it could be taken even sooner than that. The momentum now is solely with the Taliban and it is almost certainly already too late to reverse their gains.

With 2,312 US troops lost in combat in this Afghanistan war, more than $1trn spent on the conflict and all the positive advancements now crumbling, the question is this: what exactly was the last 20 years all for?

On Wednesday, David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, warned the West not to take its eyes off Afghanistan as the Taliban’s forces continue to make gains after British and US troops were withdrawn.

Conservative MP and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Tom Tugendhat suggested the UK’s withdrawal from Afghanistan is a mistake.

“We can turn this around. We need to. Investing in ourselves, our allies and partners has never been easier or more important. This is a choice. So far we’re choosing to lose,” he posted on social media.

World

Israel silences more crucial reporting voices from inside Gaza

Published

5 hours ago

August 11, 2025

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Israel silences more crucial reporting voices from inside Gaza

The targeted killing of Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif and four other colleagues by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) late on Sunday silences more crucial reporting voices from inside Gaza.

The IDF wasted no time in releasing a statement claiming it had “eliminated” Al-Sharif, calling him a “terrorist” who “posed” as a journalist for Al Jazeera.

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The Committee to Protect Journalists warned in July that Al-Sharif was the victim of an Israeli smear campaign and that they feared for his safety.

The IDF had previously released documents which they say proved his involvement with Hamas.

No word from them on his colleagues – Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa – who they also killed. We are chasing.

Al-Sharif’s death – and that of his four colleagues – is a chilling message to the journalistic community both on the ground and elsewhere ahead of Israel’s impending push into Gaza City.

There will now be fewer journalists left to cover that story, and – if it is even possible – they will be that bit more fearful.

This is how journalists are silenced. Israel knows this full well.

It has also not allowed international journalists independent access to enter Gaza to report on the war.

Al-Sharif’s death has sent shockwaves across the region, where he was a household name. He was prolific on social media and had a huge following.

I was watching horrifying footage of the immediate aftermath of the strike in the taxi on my way into the bureau, and the driver told me how he and his family had all cried for Anas when the news came in.

His little daughter cried because of Al-Sharif’s little daughter, Sham, who she knew from social media.

“They call everyone Hamas,” my taxi driver said. “Men, women, children”.

Last month, Al-Sharif wrote this post: “I haven’t stopped covering [the crisis] for a moment in 21 months, and today I say it outright… and with indescribable pain.

“I am drowning in hunger, trembling in exhaustion and resisting the fainting that follows me every moment… Gaza is dying. And we die with it.”

This is what journalists in Gaza are facing, every single day.

World

Israel’s PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Published

11 hours ago

August 11, 2025

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Israel's PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Israel’s prime minister added more detail to his deeply controversial plans for military escalation in Gaza at a news conference with foreign media yesterday – despite the condemnation of the UN Security Council, which met in an emergency session and urged him to rethink.

Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “fairly short timetable” to establish designated “safe zones” for the one million or so set to be displaced from Gaza City.

He also vowed to seize and dismantle Hamas’s final strongholds there – in the central refugee camps, and in al Mawasi, along Gaza’s southwestern coast.

This, per Netanyahu, is the only way to destroy the terror group, which he claimed “subjugates Gazans, steals their food and shoots them when they try to move to safety”.

Al Mawasi is already home to a significant displaced population, most of whom live in tents cramped up against the Mediterranean Sea, in what is already a designated humanitarian zone.

If members of Hamas live among them, rooting them out will be hugely complicated and will involve significant civilian casualties. If the residents of Gaza City can’t evacuate south to al Mawasi, where will they go?

Netanyahu’s plan is to set up more aid distribution sites through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and to flood Gaza with food.

He claimed his policy was not one of forced starvation – describing particular photos of starving babies as “fake news”, and accusing the media of painting a false picture.

“The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages,” the prime minister claimed.

I asked Netanyahu how he would go about preventing the kinds of daily killings taking place at aid distribution points in the months since GHF has been operating.

Doctors Without Borders has described these incidents as deliberately orchestrated.

The prime minister said increasing the amount of aid heading into the Strip was the answer.

“And by the way, a lot of the firing was done by Hamas seeking to have a response by our forces,” he added. “And very often they didn’t, they held back. They stayed their own fire even though their own lives were on the line.”

This was Israel’s prime minister trying to get on the front foot in a propaganda war he acknowledged he was losing. He was loath to admit the presence of famine in Gaza.

It took two questions before he acknowledged there was “deprivation”, even if he would not be drawn on whether his 11-week total blockade of the strip earlier this year had played any role.

He recognises that the appalled response of the international community to the human cost of this war, and the accusations of war crimes and genocide which Israel so vehemently rejects, are a terrible look.

This was his attempt to reclaim the narrative.

World

Defiant Netanyahu sets out plan for military escalation in Gaza – and describes photographs of starving babies as ‘fake news’

Published

17 hours ago

August 10, 2025