Afghanistan's second largest city falls to Taliban

Denmark will evacuate staff from its embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, as the Taliban's advance continues, according to a Friday news release from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Danish government has "reached an agreement with parties in the Parliament regarding a new support initiative for locally employed Afghan staff with ties to Denmark," according to the ministry. 

The initiative will offer local embassy staff the opportunity to be evacuated to Denmark. Previous embassy staff and people who have worked for the Danish Defense Service during the past two years may also request to be evacuated. Through the initiative, locally employed staff may bring their spouse or partner, as well as children under the age of 18 with them to Denmark.

This follows calls made by the UK, German, French, and US embassies earlier this week urging citizens inside Afghanistan to leave the country immediately in light of threats to security.

Denmark said its evacuations will take place "as soon as possible," albeit in a gradual manner "so that the embassy in Kabul can continue to function."

"The grounds for residency will be temporary, with a time restriction of two years without a possibility of extension," the news release said. "The right to a two-year residence permit in Denmark is conditional on the persons being evacuated are not deemed to constitute a danger to Denmark’s security".

Staff members who meet the specific and temporary grounds for residency will be allowed to apply for a residency permit under the Danish Aliens Act once safely arrived in the country.

President Biden convened a meeting of his senior national security team Wednesday night based on the rapid gains of the Taliban over the last several days, according to a senior US official.

The President was briefed on the battlefield situation and the plan that had been drafted to draw down Embassy personnel and send in US forces to facilitate that effort. 

At 7:30 a.m. ET Thursday, the national security principals met to go over the latest plan and their response to Biden. They unanimously signed off on the plan that would be presented as final, the official said. 

As CNN reported earlier, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin then briefed Biden on the full recommendation. Biden signed off and ordered Austin to carry it out.   

Biden spoke to Secretary of State Antony Blinken about diplomatic engagement with allies and partners, which US officials have been conducting throughout the day, the source said.

That included the call between Blinken and Austin with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, as well as US engagement with officials from partners on the ground, those with a diplomatic presence in the country and the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. 

There is a senior US team in Doha that will engage on the issue, including directly with the Taliban negotiators that are currently there.

The official said overall effort is already underway to reduce the number of personnel at the embassy, though the precise number of personnel slated to leave the embassy has not been finalized.  

The official made clear that the Taliban gains are more rapid than the US assessed when they made the decision to draw down troops. But both the possibility of significant Taliban gains and concerns about the capability of the Afghan National Security Forces were always elements the administration knew they would have to contend with. 

Some more context: The current deterioration has done nothing to shift Biden’s thinking on his decision and in many ways, it has bolstered it, with the performance of the Afghan security forces underscoring that no amount of additional time was going to dramatically change the dynamics on the ground. There also remains the view inside the White House that there wasn’t any option to simply leave 2,500 troops on the ground and expect a similar posture from the Taliban after May 1. 

The administration assessed the Taliban’s military capability as its strongest since 2001, and after May 1, there was every reason to believe it would be directed at US troops had a drawdown timeline not been laid out. The only options, according to this official, was drawdown or add thousands more US troops. 

US officials have communicated directly to the Taliban that if US personnel are put at risk, the US will defend them. No commitments or agreements were made about US forces on the ground with the Taliban prior to Biden’s decision. 

As of now the plan is to keep the Embassy operating with its core diplomatic presence. But there is a recognition that it could change in the coming days, weeks or months.

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said the Defense Department is “aiming to facilitate the reduction of these civilian personnel by August 31,” to line up with the end of August US troop withdrawal deadline set by President Biden, but added he could not “speculate about what the footprint’s going to look like post August 31,” during a news conference at the Pentagon on Thursday.

The Taliban has taken control of Firoz Koh, the provincial capital of Ghor province in central Afghanistan, a local source told CNN Friday. 

Afghan government officials were forced to surrender on Thursday after the Taliban seized the governor’s office, police headquarters, and the National Directorate of Security office, the source confirmed. Adding that Taliban fighters opened the central jail in Ghor province, freeing all prisoners. 

The Taliban has taken control of 17 provincial capitals since last Friday, making large territorial gains in the north of the country, which has traditionally been an anti-Taliban stronghold. 

The successful military offensive is advancing the Taliban’s main goal of encircling Kabul and pushing out President Ashraf Ghani’s government.

A senior administration official familiar with the most recent US intelligence assessment on Afghanistan told CNN Wednesday that Kabul could fall into the hands of the Taliban within 30 to 90 days.

The current and former governors of Herat, the National Directorate of Security chief, the deputy interior minister, and an Afghan Army Corps Commander have all joined the Taliban following the fall of Herat, the group claimed on Friday. 

Afghan politician and warlord Mohammad Ismail Khan was the most prominent figure to defect. Khan, who formerly served as the governor of Herat and an Afghan government minister, was seen in a Taliban video Friday speaking alongside militants.

Herat’s deputy interior minister Abdul Rahman Rahman and National Directorate of Security Chief Hasib Sediqi, along with Afghan Army Corps commander, Khyal Nabi Ahmadzai, had also defected, Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told journalists Friday.

Ahmadi also claimed “thousands” of Afghan Security Forces had joined Taliban ranks in Herat. 

CNN has not been able to independently verify all the Taliban’s defection claims but has viewed video of Mohammad Ismail Khan with the militant group. 

Herat, which is the third largest city in Afghanistan, fell to the Taliban on Friday. Currently, at least 17 provincial capitals are under Taliban control.

According to a CNN analysis, the Taliban now controls 17 of Afghanistan's 34 provincial capitals — all of which have been captured in the last week.

Four more cities fell to the Taliban on Thursday night and Friday. Several more are surrounded or under siege.

The CNN analysis is based on Taliban claims, confirmation by government and provincial officials, and visual evidence from the cities that have been taken over.

The Taliban now controls towns and territories within 100 kilometers of Kabul, including the capital of Logar province, which fell on Friday.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has announced that “In view of the changing situation in Afghanistan” the government of Pakistan has decided to relax the visa policy for foreign journalists and media workers stranded in Afghanistan.

In a statement, Ahmed said that international journalists and media workers who intend to leave Afghanistan via Pakistan are “urged to apply for a Pakistani visa.” These applications will have visas issued on a “priority basis.” 

The statement also claimed that the announcement of visa waivers by the government of Pakistan is being made "in view of the safety of journalists and media workers working in Afghanistan."

When contacted, a spokesperson of the interior ministry confirmed to CNN that visas will be issued to “foreign journalists” working for “international organisations” and this waiver doesn’t apply to Afghan journalists.

Pakistani National Security Advisor Moeed Yusuf on Connect the World:

Taliban's rapid gains in Afghanistan demonstrate that despite 20 years of military training and massive amounts of monetary investments, there is still "no real Afghan army that is able to defend its country," CNN's Fareed Zakaria says.

"We thought with just a few thousand American troops, we are somehow holding this country together. That wasn't really the case. The Taliban had decided not to fight, because when Trump agreed to [decrease] troops down to about 3,000, the Taliban agreed to negotiate. So, there was a period there where it looked like the place was calm. But the real story is that for 10 years the Taliban had been making inroads, and for 10 years the Taliban had been taking towns," he explained.

Former President Trump's decision to decrease troops in Afghanistan is why US troops are not in the position to control the situation anymore, Zakaria said.

Watch:

As the Taliban sweep through the provinces of western Afghanistan, the government has lost control of the capital of Uruzgan province, Tarin Kot. 

A local journalist told CNN Friday that the governor’s office, police headquarters and the central jail were now in the Taliban's hands. The journalist said the city had fallen to the Taliban without any fighting as tribal elders had decided not to resist the Taliban advance. 

Afghan news network TOLO quoted the governor of Uruzgan, Mohammad Omar Shizad, as saying that after days of fighting around the city, the elders had urged him to cease fire because of the likely damage of further combat.

The Taliban has not formally claimed to have captured Tarin Kot, and government officials have not confirmed the city has been lost. But videos circulating Friday showed Taliban fighters in the city. 

As the US government withdraws its troops from Afghanistan, it is also evacuating some of its Afghan interpreters, who aided the US military in their operations. However, there are still thousands of interpreters, support staff and families left behind, and they're now facing persecution at the hand of the Taliban.

Said Noor is an Afghan interpreter, who immigrated from Afghanistan, and joined the US army, but has not been able to get his family out of Afghanistan yet.

As his family sees the Taliban rapidly seizing Afghan provincial capitals, Noor says they get worried and call him.

“They just want to know about their fate — how they’re going to get out of Afghanistan, or are they going to become the next target for the Taliban? So far, I have not heard any positive feedback from the US government as far as pulling my families out of Afghanistan and bringing them into safe haven in the United States," he told CNN.

Noor described how extremely difficult it is for any interpreters, support staff and their families to leave Afghanistan.

To get to Kabul. his parents and siblings had to make a lot of excuses and make it through a lot of checkpoints manned by the Taliban.

Noor also says he is "very surprised" at how quickly the cities have fallen, including Kandahar – the country's second-biggest city – which is of particular strategic importance and was formerly a major hub for US military operations.

So far, the Taliban swept more than a dozen provincial capitals in Afghanistan.

"I'm very concerned about the situation there. And I'm sure the Taliban, pretty soon, they're going to make their way into Kabul, and it's going to be chaos,"

Afghanistan, he fears, will soon see a civil war.

WATCH THE INTERVIEW: