Taliban claim they control 85 % Afghanistan, govt officials say it is propaganda

Kabul [Afghanistan], July 10 (ANI): Afghan government officials have dismissed as propaganda claims by Taliban officials that the insurgent group had captured 85 per cent of territory in Afghanistan, amid US troop withdrawal from the country.

Dawn reported that Afghan officials described the assertion that the Taliban controlled most of the country as part of a propaganda campaign launched as foreign military personnel, including those from the United States, withdraw after almost 20 years of fighting.

Torghundi, a northern town on the border with Turkmenistan, had also been captured by the Taliban overnight, Afghan and Taliban officials said as per the publication.

Hundreds of Afghan security personnel and refugees continued to flee across the border into neighbouring Iran and Tajikistan, causing concern in Moscow and other foreign capitals that radical groups could infiltrate Central Asia.

Three visiting Taliban officials sought to address those concerns during a visit to Moscow. “We will take all measures so that (terrorists) Islamic State (group) will not operate on Afghan territory… and our territory will never be used against our neighbours,” one of the Taliban officials, Shahabuddin Delawar said in a press conference on Friday.

He said: “you and the entire world community have probably recently learned that 85 per cent of the territory of Afghanistan has come under the control” of the Taliban.

The same delegation said a day earlier that the group would not attack the Tajik-Afghan border, the fate of which is in focus in Russia and Central Asia.

The Taliban has recently said that the interpreters who contributed in military missions of US troops have to repent for their actions and after that that they will be free to live and will not be targeted.

Right groups have informed the White House that women journalists, activists and politicians are on the Taliban’s target list.

The US administration has not shown the green signal for the recommendation made by the rights groups.

This comes amid a surge in violence in Afghanistan. The Taliban has intensified its offensive against the government after foreign forces have started withdrawing from the war-torn country. (ANI)