The Taliban’s march through northern Afghanistan led to Afghan forces occupying several districts, several hundred of whom fled across the border into Tajikistan, officials said on Sunday.
Tajikistan’s State Committee for National Security said in a statement that more than 300 Afghan military personnel crossed through Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province as Taliban fighters moved toward the border.
Afghan troops crossed the border at around 6.30 pm local time on Saturday.
“Guided by the principles of humanism and good neighborliness,” the statement said, “Tajik authorities allowed the retreating Afghan national defense and security forces to enter Tajikistan.”
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Since mid-April, when US President Joe Biden declared the end of Afghanistan’s “forever war”, the Taliban have made progress across the country. But his most important advantage has been in the northern part of the country, a traditional stronghold of America’s Allied warlords who helped defeat him in 2001.
The Taliban now control all of Afghanistan’s 421 districts and about a third of the district centres.
Mohib-ul Rahman, a member of the provincial council, said most of the gains in the northeastern Badakhshan province in recent days have gone to the insurgent movement without a fight. He attributed the Taliban’s successes to the poor morale of troops, who are mostly outnumbered and without supplies.
“Unfortunately, most of the districts were left to the Taliban without a fight,” Rahman said. He said that in the past three days, 10 districts fell to the Taliban, eight without a fight.
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Rahman said hundreds of Afghan army, police and intelligence soldiers surrendered their military posts and fled to Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan province.
A security meeting was being held in the early hours of Sunday for a plot to strengthen the perimeter around the capital, with some senior provincial officials leaving Faizabad for the capital, Kabul, he said.
In late June the Afghan government revitalized militias with a reputation for brutal violence to support beleaguered Afghan forces, but Rahman said many militias in Badakhshan districts fought only half-heartedly.
Taliban-controlled areas in the north are becoming increasingly strategic, running along Afghanistan’s border with Central Asian states. Last month the religious movement seized Imam Sahib, a city in Kunduz province opposite Uzbekistan, and gained control of a major trade route.
The infiltration into Badakhshan is particularly important as it is the home province of former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was killed by a suicide bomber in 2011. His son, Salahuddin Rabbani, is part of the current High Council for National Reconciliation.
The slain former president also headed Afghanistan’s Jamiat-e-Islami, the party of renowned anti-Taliban fighter Ahmed Shah Masood, who was killed by a suicide bomber two days before the 9/11 attacks in the US.
The Interior Ministry issued a statement on Saturday saying the defeat was temporary, though it was unclear how they would regain control.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed the fall of the districts and said fighting had not taken place in most. Videos showing the Taliban taking money for the transportation of Afghan soldiers and returning to their homes in the last surrender.