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| (via Arab News) |
Tens of thousands of people have been flooding into the Afghan capital, Kabul, and gathering at the Pakistan border to escape the escalating fighting between Taliban militants and government forces.
As more provincial capitals fell to the Taliban, Afghanistan's Refugees and Repatriations Ministry said that more than 35,000 families had arrived in the capital over the last week and that officials are struggling to provide them food and shelter.
Afghanistan's looming collapse
Abubakar Siddique
This week's rapid-fire events raised the specter of Afghanistan falling to the Taliban, which took over the country's second and third cities after securing at least 10 provincial capitals.
With an apparent balance of power in its favor, the militants are set to march on Kabul, where Washington and allies are rushing in fresh troops to help evacuate diplomats and other civilians. (See our interactive map of how Taliban control is expanding as the government's authority shrinks across Afghanistan.)
As Frud Bezhan reports, the Taliban's capture of Herat and Kandahar is a major turning point in the war. "The simultaneous fall of Ghazni, Herat, and Kandahar has definitely shifted the balance of power in favor of the Taliban," Ali Adili, a researcher in Kabul, told us. "Residents of Kabul feel the inevitability of the city being the next possible target." Additional story at:
tinyurl.com/357amcd3
How the Taliban's Leadership is Structured
RTA Radio Afghanistan is inactive on shortwave, and the status of 1107 AM kHz is not known. It was previously listed as 0100-1830 UTC in Dari/Pashto services. The RTA website http://atra.gov.af/en is not active. There is a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/rtaworld/. Warning to viewers there are disturbing images.
The RTA Twitter page, RTA World is present at https://twitter.com/rtaworld?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor