Taliban seizes 18th Afghan city as UK warns of civil war
Taliban seizes Qalat, Terenkot, Pul-e Alam, Feruz Koh, Qala-e Naw and Lashkar Gah in a single day.
The Taliban armed group has captured the provincial capitals, Qalat, Terenkot, Pul-e Alam, Feruz Koh, Qala-e Naw and Lashkar Gah, hours after capturing Herat and Kandahar cities.
It so far has control over 18 provincial capitals across Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is tipping towards civil war and the West must understand that the Taliban is not a single entity but a title for a myriad of competing interests, the United Kingdom’s defence minister says.
“Britain found that out in the 1830s, that it is a country led by warlords and led by different provinces and tribes, and you end up, if you’re not very careful in a civil war, and I think we are heading towards a civil war,” Defence Secretary Ben Wallace tells the BBC.
“The Taliban is not entirely a single entity, they break down underneath the title into all sorts of different interests,” Wallace said.
Here are the latest updates:
Iran says Afghan soldiers enter southeastern Iran
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency claims that some Afghan military vehicles have crossed the border into Iran after being sieged by the Taliban.
Germany significantly reducing embassy staff
The German government will reduce the number of people working at the German embassy in Kabul to the “absolute minimum,” Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has said.
“The government’s crisis coordination team also decided to bring forward charter flights that were originally planned for the end of August,” Maas told journalists in Denzlingen in southern Germany.
