Following the withdrawal of foreign troops, Taliban launched an offensive that has resulted in a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the majority of people are fleeing northeastern and eastern Afghanistan, where the insurgent group is focusing all of its efforts on re-establishing the Islamic Emirate.
Terrorists have intensified their offensive across much of Afghanistan, focusing their fire on provincial capitals after capturing large swaths of land in the mostly rural countryside. Five of the country’s 34 provincial capitals are under their control.
On Sunday, Taliban fighters launched a rocket attack on Kandahar Airport’s Ahmad Shah Abdali terminal. Following the attack, flight operations were halted for a few hours.
According to police, Taliban fighters shot and killed Toofan Omari, a journalist and the head of the radio station Paktia Voice, in Kabul. Omar worked as a prosecutor in the province of Paktia. His car was ambushed while he was driving from Bagram to Kabul.
In areas now under Taliban control, vengeance attacks and repressive treatment of women have been reported. Two policewomen were kidnapped in Ghazni city and are being held at an unknown location by the insurgent group.
Children are the ones who suffer the most. Mustapha Ben Messaoud, UNICEF’s chief of field operations in Afghanistan, predicted that by the end of the year, one in every two children under the age of five in Afghanistan will be mentally ill or malnourished, preventing them from attending school.
The Taliban’s recent attack on Takhar province resulted in a heartbreaking video. In the attack, a toddler was killed, and his sister was seen crying and trying to wake him up.
Afghan security forces and government troops have retaliated with airstrikes aided by the US as Taliban attacks have increased. Concerns about civilian casualties have grown as a result of the fighting.
Sher Ali Shakir, the Helmand health department chief, said Monday that seven people had been killed and 95 had been wounded in the fighting in the previous 24 hours and had been transferred to hospitals in the province.
