Islamists advance: Taliban capture Afghanistan's third largest city

The Taliban in Afghanistan have captured another provincial capital and the third largest city in Afghanistan. The city of Gasni in the southeast of the country and Herat in the west on the border with Iran are now in the hands of the Islamists. Gasni is a strategically important city and is just 150 kilometers from the capital Kabul. According to provincial councils, the Taliban has already spread across the city. They would have taken over the prison, the governor's seat and the police headquarters. Only the secret service is still fighting for his building. In Herat, too, the most important government institutions are in the hands of the Islamists, three local officials from the German Press Agency confirmed on Thursday.

The fall of the historic city of Herat, with an estimated 600,000 inhabitants, was preceded by weeks of attacks on the city. The Taliban were initially kept in check by the security forces and militias of the local politician and former warlord Ismail Chan, and in some cases were also pushed back. Provincial councils have reported increasing fighting in Herat since Thursday afternoon (local time). The Taliban had advanced into the city from the east and reached the governor's seat up to 200 meters. Ismail Chan's militias were busy repelling an attack by the Islamists in the west of the city. They have also advanced from the north, said another provincial council.

Two provincial councilors of Gasnis reproached the governor of the province of the same name.

He had concluded a secret agreement with the Taliban and thus practically surrendered the city to the Islamists.

The governor and the chief of police had left the city in the direction of Kabul.

The city of Gasni has about 180,000 inhabitants and is located on the important ring road that connects the largest cities in the country.

It is the tenth provincial capital that fell to the Taliban last week.

Maas wants to suspend financial aid when the Taliban come to power

In view of the escalation of violence in Afghanistan, the Minister of State in the Foreign Office, Niels Annen (SPD), expects an increasing number of refugees from the region also in Europe and Germany. "It is naive to believe that the advance of the Taliban and the violence in the war region have no consequences for migration policy," he told the newspapers of the Funke media group. "We will also feel the effects in Germany, even if not in the coming weeks."

Germany is “an attractive destination country for Afghans,” says the Minister of State. That also has to do with the fact that a large Afghan community already lives here. “Many hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees are mainly heading to Kabul, or to [the] neighboring states of Iran and Pakistan. Here the international community must help to provide the best possible care for the refugees on site in neighboring countries and in the safe regions of Afghanistan. "

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) announced that financial aid to Afghanistan would be suspended in the event of a complete takeover by the Taliban and the establishment of a caliphate.

“We won't give a cent more to Afghanistan when the Taliban have completely taken over this country, introduce Sharia law and this country becomes a caliphate,” Maas said on Thursday in the ZDF's “Morgenmagazin”.

The country is "not viable without international aid".

According to the Foreign Minister, Germany supports Afghanistan with 430 million euros a year.

Germany calls on citizens to return home

In view of the rapid advance of the Taliban, Germany is urging its citizens to quickly leave the crisis country. Against the background of the significantly deteriorated security situation in the entire national territory, including the capital Kabul, the embassy urgently advises all German nationals to leave the country as soon as possible by scheduled flight, according to a message sent by the Federal Foreign Office.

The German embassy in Kabul expressly pointed out that, due to their limited work opportunities and limited capacities, they could not guarantee that consular support would be provided even if the security situation worsened, which could possibly also result in the cessation of commercial air traffic can be guaranteed. A travel warning for Afghanistan has been in place for a long time. At the end of March, a request to leave the country was already issued, which is underlined once again with the request that has now been sent, as the message says.

Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) made the Afghan bureaucracy responsible for delays in the departure of former local staff who fear for life and limb in their home country because of their commitment to the Bundeswehr. “There is a bottleneck at the moment. That is the fact that the Afghan side itself only lets people out of the country if they have an Afghan passport, ”the minister said on ZDF on Thursday. That is "the biggest bottleneck" at the moment. The Federal Foreign Office is currently trying to dissuade the Afghan government from this practice. There must be “diplomatic and political work”.