Mass Afghan government surrenders as Taliban fighters overrun three key cities in sweeping territorial gains

KABUL â€" Senior Afghan officials and hundreds of Afghan government forces in the country’s west and south surrendered to the Taliban early Friday after the militants overran three key cities, inching the country closer to collapse in the final days of the U.S. withdrawal.

The recent advances by the militant group, largely achieved with little resistance from Afghan government forces despite years of U.S. training and support, are isolating the Afghan capital with stunning speed and increasingly weakening the administration of President Ashraf Ghani.

In the western city of Herat, an entire Afghan army corps crumbled, with hundreds of troops handing over their weapons to the Taliban and others fleeing, according to local officials. The surrender deal was brokered Thursday night by a group of Taliban leaders who met with Afghan government and security forces at the military base where they were holed up after the city was overrun earlier that day.

The province’s governor, intelligence chief, chief of police and a prominent anti-Taliban militia leader also resigned their posts in exchange for Taliban protection, said Ghulam Habib Hashimi, a legislative official.

The Taliban’s advance across the nation’s south on Friday, staggering in speed and scale, leaves the insurgents holding half of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals and controlling roughly two-thirds of the country. All eyes are on Kabul, as the Taliban gradually closes in on the capital.

In the southern province of Helmand, hundreds more Afghan forces surrendered, ceding control of the capital, Lashkar Gah, according to Mirwais Khadem, a parliament member. And in Kandahar, government control has shrunk to the city’s airport and adjoining military base.

Sayed Ahmad Seylab, a provincial council member, said Afghan forces and officials retreated from the main government compound in Kandahar to “avoid civilian casualties and the destruction of Kandahar city.”

The mass surrenders of Afghan security forces and government personnel are accelerating Taliban advances across Afghanistan, undercutting the military’s morale and supplying the militants with weaponry. On Friday, the capitals of Ghowr, Zabul, Logar and Uruzgan provinces fell to the fighters, the highest number in a single day.

Kandahar’s governor, police chief and several other officials abandoned administrative buildings overnight, according to Seylab. In Herat, a similar scenario unfolded, according to Hashimi, a provincial council member, who said the city’s main officials fled to a military base before surrendering.

In Helmand province, after weeks of intense clashes during which Taliban fighters besieged the local government compound in Lashkar Gah, Afghan forces abandoned the cluster of buildings for a military base, according to Khadem.

"The Afghanistan Papers" author Craig Whitlock explains how presidents misled the public about the war in Afghanistan for nearly two decades. (Joy Yi/The Washington Post)

The Taliban’s advances are heightening concern that the Afghan government will largely collapse, leaving Kabul as an island surrounded by Taliban-controlled territory.

The Taliban also overran the capitals of Ghazni and Badghis provinces Thursday. Ghazni’s governor fled the city as it fell and was arrested by Afghan government forces on the road to Kabul on suspicion of brokering a deal with the Taliban to abandon the province, according to a spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry.

Meanwhile, the United States and its allies are sending troops to evacuate their nationals and scaling back their embassies in Kabul as rapid Taliban advances imperil the embattled Afghan state.

The Biden administration said Thursday it is sending an additional 3,000 troops to assist in the evacuation of some civilian staff from the U.S. Embassy, along with Afghans who have aided the U.S. government in the war effort.

Also Thursday, Britain said it will deploy 600 troops to help British nationals leave. It has scaled back its embassy in Kabul to a “core team focused on providing consular and visa services for those needing to rapidly leave the country.”

“The security of British nationals, British military personnel and former Afghan staff is our first priority,” British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said in a statement. “We must do everything we can to ensure their safety.”

Canada will send special forces to Afghanistan to evacuate staff from its embassy in Kabul before it closes, the Associated Press reported Thursday. Young children of Afghans who worked for Canada are among those taking shelter at the embassy, hoping to be rescued, Canadian news outlet Global News reported. The Canadian Embassy and Defense Ministry didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

India’s embassy in Kabul issued its second security advisory in as many days, after earlier calling on its citizens to make immediate arrangements to leave the country as Taliban violence escalated.

The United Nations Security Council is discussing a draft statement that would condemn Taliban attacks on cities and towns causing high civilian casualties and threaten sanctions for abuses and acts that risk Afghanistan’s peace and stability, Reuters reported.

The orders to return American forces to Afghanistan come just weeks before the military is scheduled to conclude its withdrawal under a timeline established by President Biden. A grim new intelligence assessment has forecast the potential collapse of Kabul, home to the central government and international airport, within 30 to 90 days.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the embassy drawdown and troop deployment revived memories of the United States’ “humiliating” retreat from Vietnam at the end of that war.

“The latest news of a further drawdown at our Embassy and a hasty deployment of military forces seem like preparations for the fall of Kabul,” he said in a statement. “President Biden’s decisions have us hurtling toward an even worse sequel to the humiliating fall of Saigon in 1975.”

He called on the Biden administration to commit to providing more support to Afghan forces, starting with close-air support beyond Aug. 31.

“Without it, al-Qaeda and the Taliban may celebrate the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks by burning down our Embassy in Kabul,” McConnell said.

Pannett reported from Sydney. Lamothe reported from Washington. Missy Ryan, Karen DeYoung, Anne Gearan, John Hudson and Sammy Westfall in Washington contributed to this report, which has been updated.

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