On Sunday, Taliban fighters overran three Afghan provincial capitals, including the city of Sari Pul in the north of the country, the capital of the province of the same name, and has economic and strategic importance.
Sar-e Pol is rich in “untapped” natural resources, including oil fields, which were recently drilled and captured by the Taliban, after nearly a month of fighting and airstrikes.
The New York Times says that the Taliban’s control of Sari-Pul gives the movement a paved way to seize Mazar-i-Sharif, an important economic center.
Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, was one of the last oases of calm in Afghanistan, currently riven by military developments.
The newspaper explains that the attack on Mazar-i-Sharif has become easy, as the city is located in the middle of the cities controlled by the Taliban, which are Sari-Pul and Sheberghan in the west, and Kunduz in the east.
With a population of about 621,000, Sari-Pul is an ethnically diverse city, with Uzbeks making up the majority.
Despite its importance, Sari-Pul has been widely neglected, says the New York Times, blaming the Afghan government and international aid agencies that flocked to Afghanistan after 2001.
On Monday morning, the Taliban gained control of five of the capitals of the 34 Afghan provinces, after seizing three of them on Sunday, including the city of Kunduz, in a major attack that the army seems unable to stop.
A few hours apart on Sunday, the rebels, after fierce fighting, captured Kunduz, which they had been besieging for a few weeks, and then took Sari Pul and Talqan.
“The capture of Kunduz is really important because it will allow the release of a large number of Taliban fighters who can be mobilized elsewhere in northern Afghanistan,” Ibrahim Thorial Bahes, an adviser with the International Crisis Group, told AFP.
After Sari Pul also fell into the hands of the Taliban, human rights activist Baruena Azimi told AFP that administrative officials and the rest of the armed forces withdrew to barracks about three kilometers from Sari Pul.
Mirwais Stanikzai, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, for his part, indicated that reinforcements, including members of the Special Forces, were sent to Sari Pul and Sheberghan, which the movement’s fighters captured last Saturday.
