Taliban controls 85% of Afghan territory: Report

As US troops leave Afghanistan, Taliban on Friday said that it now controls 85% of Afghanistan’s territory as the militants mount an offensive, reports AFP. According to the report, the group’s claims cannot be independently verified.

Taliban negotiator Shahabuddin Delawar, at a press conference in Moscow, said, “85% of Afghanistan’s territory” is under the group’s control, including some 250 of the country’s 398 districts.

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has defended the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, saying it was “not inevitable” that the country would fall to the emboldened Taliban The troops withdrawal will would be completed by August 31.

US forces will leave the country nearly 20 years after American forces toppled the Taliban regime in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The US military has “achieved” its goals in Afghanistan — killing Osama bin Laden, degrading Al-Qaeda, and preventing more attacks on the United States, Biden said in a White House speech.

“We are ending America’s longest war,” he said, stating that the withdrawal would be completed by August 31 — earlier than his initial deadline of September 11. The Pentagon has said the exit is already 90 percent complete.

“The status quo is not an option,” Biden said of staying in the country. “I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan.”

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“The United States cannot afford to remain tethered to policies created to respond to a world as it was 20 years ago,” he said. “We need to meet the threats where they are today.”