Afghanistan calls Taliban’s claim of controlling 90% borders ‘absolute lie’

The Taliban’s claim that they control 90% of Afghanistan’s borders is an “absolute lie,” according to the Afghan defence ministry, which insists that government forces are in charge of the country’s borders.

“It is baseless propaganda,” Fawad Aman, the Ministry of Defence’s deputy spokesperson, told AFP a day after the militants made the claim, which could not be independently verified.

The Taliban made the claim on Thursday after capturing major border crossings with Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Pakistan in recent weeks as US-led foreign forces began their last troop departure from Afghanistan.

Aman maintained on Friday that government soldiers were in charge of the country’s borders and security.

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Even as large-scale combat dwindled over the Eid al-Adha holiday this week, the interior ministry accused the Taliban of killing approximately 100 people in the Pakistani border town of Spin Boldak since capturing the crossing last week.

“Afghan security forces will soon take revenge on these wild terrorists,” interior ministry spokesman Mirwais Stanekzai said on Twitter.

“The Taliban whenever they get control (of territory), the first thing they do is destroy public facilities or public infrastructure, harass people and forcefully displace families,” Aman told AFP.

“It happened in Spin Boldak too,” he added.

The resurgent Taliban now controls approximately half of Afghanistan’s 400 districts, with the departure of American-led foreign forces almost complete.

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General Mark Milley, head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned earlier this week that the Taliban looked to be gaining “strategic momentum” on the battlefield.

Milley said that, with terrorists placing pressure on about half of the country’s provincial capitals, Afghan forces are “consolidating their forces” to safeguard those main metropolitan centres.