Taliban

The Ministry of Interior Affairs said that the Governor along with his deputy and chief of staff have been arrested and disarmed in Wardak province, according to media reports. Laghmani was let go and escorted by the Taliban from Ghazni to Wardak. Parts of Ghazni have fallen to the Taliban, while Afghan forces are still active in other parts of the provincial capital and will launch operations against the fighters.

The recent US military departure from Afghanistan after a 20-year presence cleared the way for the Taliban to gain control of huge swaths of the country, posing a danger to the Kabul administration. Despite the increasing alliance, Beijing is concerned about the group's ties to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which poses a domestic security risk.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on his social media account that they overran government offices, including provincial police headquarters, in Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand province, on Thursday night, reports Xinhua news agency. Helmand has been regarded as a Taliban stronghold during the past two decades, but Afghan soldiers were holding control over Lashkar Gah and many of the suburban districts.

US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price told reporters on Thursday that India participated in a meeting hosted by the US and Qatar at which the participating countries "agreed, first and foremost, that the peace process needs to be accelerated. And they also agreed, importantly, that they will not recognise any government that is imposed through military force."

"Pakistan will have direct impact of a long civil war in Afghanistan because of the large Pashtun population we have in the country. The country that will be most affected after Afghanistan will be Pakistan. It has happened in the past when our Pashtun people reacted to what was happening in Afghanistan. Because of that, we lost over 60,000 people," Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said.

The proposal was delivered through Qatar, the host of Afghan peace talks, according to the source. In another development, the head of the High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR), Abdullah Abdullah, presented to the members of Troika-plus the scheme of Afghan government for winding up the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

The bodyguards of Governor Daoud Laghmani, were reportedly disarmed and were escorted until Kabul based on the agreement between the two sides, media reports said. The Afghan government though has not confirmed the collapse of Ghazni province, but sources have said that the fighters have entered all government facilities. If confirmed, Ghazni will be 10th province to be seized by the taliban in just seven days.

The fired army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Wali Mohammad Ahmadzai, had only been appointed by Ghani in June. Since then, much of Afghanistan's regular military surrendered to the Taliban or melted away, allowing the insurgents to seize nine of the country's 34 provincial capitals and most of the countryside.

The fighters in broadcasted video claim to have taken a chopper of Afghan army which seems to be out of work, media reports said. Video clips from Kunduz province show that tens of Afghan forces also surrendered to the Taliban along with rangers and Humvees. Meanwhile, the fighters have also taken control of another airport in Sheberghan city of Jawzjan province.

The officials on the condition of anonymity told The Washington Post that they had predicted the collapse of Kabul from six to 12 months after the foreign troops' withdrawal but everything has changed and the time has come to be three months now, as per Afghan media reports. The pace at which the Taliban are gaining territories is surprising and some predict that the capital could even by collapsed in a span of one month.