US military planes hit Taliban positions in captured Afghan city, says NATO

Health ministry spokesperson Wahidullah Mayar said: “Our hospitals in Kunduz province have received 172 injured patients and 16 dead bodies so far”.

The seizure of the city would give Taliban insurgents a critical base of operations beyond their traditional strongholds in Afghanistan’s south. Afghan government leaders and the U.S.-led coalition here view the battle for Kunduz as a key test of the Afghan security forces in their continuing fight with the Taliban.

Around 5,000 Afghan troops massed at Kunduz airport early on Wednesday after fighting there raged late into the night, an Afghan security official said, and Taliban fighters were driven back with the help a second US air strike.

In a televised address to the nation, Ghani said the military launched a counter-offensive on the city, with security forces “retaking government buildings… and reinforcements, including special forces and commandos are either there or on their way there”.

An Afghan policeman holds a gun on his shoulder on Tuesday, a day after Taliban insurgents overran the strategic northern city of Kunduz.

But Bill Roggio, editor of The Long War Journal, said the Afghan security forces need to decide whether to defend northern or southern Afghanistan because they can’t do both at the same time. He also urged the Taliban to cease the bloodshed and try to resolve differences through peaceful means. He said the Taliban had “sustained heavy casualties”.

Fighter planes still were flying over Kunduz, but the gunfights had ended, and authorities were preparing to recapture the city from the Taliban as soon as possible, Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, a spokesman for the Kunduz police chief, said. At the time, Ghani and other officials had promised they would not allow the insurgents to come closer again.

“The fall of Kunduz”, wrote Roggio on Monday, “would invalidate the entire USA “surge” strategy from 2009 to 2012″.

“It [has] essentially done something that few if any terror groups other than ISIS have done in recent years”, he says.

The Taliban also set free hundreds of prisoners including the group Commanders from the Central Jail after capturing it. “They don’t have the air support, they don’t have the logistics, but I think most importantly they don’t have the fighting spirit that the Taliban has”.

Meanwhile, Medecins Sans Frontieres, or “Doctors Without Borders”, told reporters the main trauma center in the city has been overwhelmed with gunshot victims over the past two days.

One security analyst is describing the Taliban takeover of the city as “a shock but not a surprise” – adding that “every province in Afghanistan is as fragile as Kunduz”.

The Kunduz defeat is an embarrassing setback for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who’s had a troubled first year in office.

“Fresh troops have arrived in Kunduz, and an operation has been launched”, the ministry said in a statement, Reuters reported.