The radical Islamic Taliban have taken Jalalabad, the penultimate city of Afghanistan still controlled by the government, without a fight. "There is currently no fighting because the governor has surrendered to the Taliban," an Afghan official told Reuters. This was the only way to save civilians' lives. According to a Western official, after the fall of the last major city, the Taliban now control all of the country's major traffic arteries in addition to the capital Kabul.

Before Jalalabad, the Taliban had also taken the city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Apparently the city fell without a fight, said the chairman of the local provincial council, Afsal Hadid.

Government soldiers have fled towards the border with Uzbekistan.

In a field camp on the outskirts of the city, the German Bundeswehr had its headquarters for the Afghanistan mission until it withdrew in June.

The Islamists had been attacking Mazar-i-Sharif intensely for about a week.

Again and again they tried from several sides to penetrate the economically strong metropolis with an estimated 500,000 inhabitants.

Militias of the ex-governor Mohammad Atta Nur and the ex-warlord Abdul Raschid Dostum had recently built an additional line of defense north of the city to support the security forces.

Biden defends trigger

Despite the rapid advance of the Islamist and militant Taliban, US President Joe Biden has once again defended the withdrawal of US troops from the crisis state. "Another year or five more years of US military presence would have made no difference if the Afghan military cannot or does not want to keep its own country," said a statement from the president on Saturday. An endless American presence in the middle of a civil war in another country was not acceptable to him. "I was the fourth president to lead an American troop presence in Afghanistan - two Republicans, two Democrats," said Biden. He will “not pass this war on to a fifth president”.

In Mazar-i-Sharif, the German armed forces had a large field camp in Camp Marmal near the airport until recently. Around 1,000 German soldiers were stationed there until the summer. At the end of June, following the decision to withdraw from the US and NATO, the last remaining soldiers were flown out at night in four military aircraft. The Bundeswehr recently trained Afghan security forces as part of the NATO “Resolute Support” mission. There could be other local armed forces in the city. They fear acts of revenge by the Taliban against them.

Security sources said the Islamists had entered the city around 9 p.m. (local time). They then released prisoners from the city's central prison. A large part of the security forces have withdrawn to the district of Tschahar Kent and to Camp Marmal near the airport.