The Taliban assaulted the northern provincial capital of Kunduz from three directions and seized control of areas in the city. Unconfirmed reports from residents and Taliban fighters inside Kunduz indicate that Afghan forces have been driven out of the city and the jihadist group is in full control. 
 
 According to the BBC, hundreds of Taliban fighters launched their offensive today from three districts: Imam Sahib to the north, Khanabad from the southeast, and Chardara from the southwest. All three districts are thought to be under Taliban control. 
 
 The Taliban confirmed that it launched a three-pronged assault on Kunduz city. “The operations have commenced on the city center from 3 directions with Mujahideen quickly taking enemy positions and the enemy is retreating from their positions,” according to an initial statement that was posted on Voice of Jihad. 
 
 The Taliban later stated that its fighters have “reached the main city intersection, are targeting the governors [sic] compound and clearing the small remaining pockets from enemy presence.” 
 
 Afghan security officials have denied that the Taliban is in control of the city and have stated that the fighting was largely confined to the outskirts of the provincial capital. 
 
 But reports from the Afghan media, as well as Taliban fighters and residents inside the city, indicate that parts if not all of the city are now under the jihadist group’s control. 
 
 According to TOLONews, “Taliban insurgents have taken control of Kunduz city’s provincial council building and the local High Peace Council offices.” 
 
 Ehsanullah Ehsan, a stabilization manager at the international development agency DAI who is based in Kunduz, has said that the Taliban has seized the city and Afghan National Security Forces [ANSF] have retreated. 
 
 “Kunduz city is completely with taliban ANSF are out,” Ehsan tweeted. “[T]he city is completely with taliban now, taliban walking inside streets, i am trapped at home.” 
 
 Ehsan posted photographs purportedly showing Taliban fighters walking the streets of Kunduz and prisoners who have been freed from the city’s main jail. 
 
 Kunduz province has been hotly contested since the Taliban and its allies launched an offensive to seize control of the province at the end of April. The districts of Imam Sahib, Aliabad, and Qala-i-Zal were overrun in the initial assault, while Chardara and Dasht-i-Archi fell in mid-June. Khanabad fell under Taliban control the same day that Kunduz fell. The status of the six districts is unclear, but the Taliban is still thought to be in control of Imam Sahib, Aliabad, Chardara, Khanabad, and Dasht-i-Archi. 
 
 The Taliban and allied jihadist groups based in Kunduz have been flexing their muscles in the province in recent weeks. In August, hundreds of fighters from the Taliban and the allied Islamic Jihad Union massed in the open, in daylight, to swear allegiance to Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, the new emir of the Taliban. Last week, the Islamic Jihad Union claimed it controlled large areas of the border with Tajikistan and a border crossing from Kunduz into the northern Afghan neighbor. 
 
 The loss of Kunduz city, if confirmed, would be a major blow to the Afghan government and military, which have struggled to maintain security after US and NATO forces have drawn down to a token presence. Kunduz city would be the first provincial capital to fall to the Taliban. 
 
 Additionally, the fall of Kunduz would invalidate the entire US “surge” strategy from 2009 to 2012. The US military focused its efforts on the southern Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, claiming that these provinces were the key to breaking the Taliban. Little attention was given to other areas of Afghanistan, including the northern provinces, where the Taliban has expended considerable effort in fighting the military and government. Today, the Taliban is gaining ground in northern, central, eastern and southern Afghanistan, with dozens of districts falling under the jihadist group’s control over the past year. 
 
 Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal. 
 
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 KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban fighters on Monday battled their way into the center of Kunduz, a city in northern Afghanistan, and seized the provincial governor’s office in one of the militant group’s biggest territorial gains in 14 years, witnesses and officials said. 
 
 In a major setback for Afghan forces, who abandoned a provincial headquarters for the first time since 2001, the insurgents raised their white banner over the central square and freed hundreds of fellow militants from the local jail. 
 
 The stunning assault came a day before President Ashraf Ghani’s unity government marks its first anniversary, and will further complicate efforts to resume stalled peace negotiations. 
 
 It was the second time this year that the hardline Islamist movement has besieged Kunduz, a city defended by Afghan forces battling largely without NATO’s support after it withdrew most of its troops last year. 
 
 The insurgents launched a surprise, three-pronged offensive before dawn, and by evening had captured the governor’s compound and provincial police headquarters, said Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman for the hardline Islamist movement. 
 
 “Our fighters are now advancing toward the airport,” Mujahid said on Twitter. 
 
 Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi later confirmed that “most of Kunduz city has fallen to the Taliban,” and said Afghan forces were regrouping at the airport. 
 
 “IT LOOKS GRIM” 
 
 The Kunduz assault marks a troubling development in the insurgency, although government forces have managed to drive the Taliban back from most of the territory gained this year during an escalation in violence. 
 
 “It is certainly the first major breach of a provincial capital since 2001,” said Graeme Smith, senior analyst for International Crisis Group. “They are choking the Afghan forces from all sides. It looks pretty grim.” 
 
 Related Coverage Families divided, residents flee from Afghan city under siege 
 
 The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan evacuated its Kunduz compound early on Monday, soon after the assault began. 
 
 “They’ve been relocated within Afghanistan,” said U.N. spokesman Dominic Medley, declining to say where or how many staff were evacuated. 
 
 The Afghan army’s deputy chief of staff, Murad Ali Murad, defended the security forces’ performance, suggesting they withdrew to avoid harming civilians with all-out urban warfare. 
 
 “There were enough troops inside Kunduz city, but the insurgents used some route deemed not that sensitive,” Murad told a news briefing late on Monday. 
 
 “Our forces arrived there on time, but we had to take extra care not to cause civilian casualties.” 
 
 Dozens of Afghan special forces were flown to Kunduz airport on a C-130 aircraft and were preparing to launch a counter-attack, according to a senior official in Kabul. 
 
 The U.S. military did not carry out any airstrikes in support of Afghan forces in Kunduz, U.S. officials said. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, could not say whether any action by the U.S.-led coalition - now primarily in an advise and assist role - was in the works. 
 
 U.S. State Department spokeswoman Katy Bondy said that Afghan forces assumed primarily security responsibilities earlier this year, “and we expected that fighting would be severe this year.” 
 
 “The situation remains fluid, and we are continuing to follow the situation closely,” she said. 
 
 Abdullah Danishy, deputy governor of Kunduz, vowed that Afghan forces would retake the occupied city. 
 
 Afghan security forces travel on an armored vehicle in Kunduz Province, Afghanistan September 28, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer 
 
 “We have reinforcements coming from other areas and will beat back the Taliban,” Danishy said by telephone from Kunduz airport after fleeing his office. 
 
 But with most of downtown Kunduz now in Taliban hands and terrified civilians either trying to flee or hiding inside their homes, the insurgents may be tough to dislodge. 
 
 “Once they get inside an urban area, your air assets and artillery become much less useful,” Smith said. 
 
 FAMILIES SEPARATED 
 
 The Taliban were ousted in 2001 after a U.S.-led campaign, and have been fighting to reimpose their rule in sporadic clashes ever since. They have stepped up their offensive this year as NATO forces drew down to just a few thousand troops. 
 
 One Reuters witness saw buildings on fire in the south of the city and Taliban fighters entering a 200-bed government-run hospital. 
 
 Dozens of panicked residents fled to the city’s main airport, but were turned away by security forces. Electricity and phone services were cut across most of the city, and family members struggled to locate one another in the chaos. 
 
 “My uncle’s wife has been killed by the Taliban today and still my wife and kids are in the area that the Taliban captured, so it is important to free my family,” said Matin Safraz, an official at the Interior Ministry who was visiting Kunduz for the Muslim holiday of Eid. 
 
 Safraz had retreated to the airport, and said he was prepared to fight the Taliban with a borrowed AK-47 rifle. 
 
 Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, a spokesman for Kunduz police, said 20 Taliban fighters had been killed and three Afghan police wounded in the early morning clashes. Updated casualty figures were not immediately available. 
 
 According to two security officials, Taliban gunmen, some armed with rocket-propelled grenades, overwhelmed security guards and broke into the main city prison, freeing hundreds of fighters. 
 
 Slideshow (4 Images) 
 
 Taliban spokesman Mujahid urged Kunduz residents to stay inside. 
 
 “The mujahideen are trying to avoid any harm to Kunduz residents,” he said on his official Twitter account, referring to Taliban fighters. 
 
 The once-quiet north of Afghanistan has seen escalating violence. Kunduz city was the center of fierce fighting earlier this year as the Taliban sought to gain territory after the end of NATO’s combat mission at the end of 2014. 
 
 A scaled-down NATO presence now mostly trains and advises Afghan forces, although U.S. drones still target militant leaders and a U.S. counter-terrorist force also operates in the country. 

 KABUL, Afghanistan — After months of besieging the northern Afghan provincial capital of Kunduz, Taliban fighters took over the city on Monday just hours after advancing, officials said, as government security forces fully retreated to the city’s outlying airport. 
 
 The Taliban’s sudden victory, after what had appeared to be a stalemate through the summer, gave the insurgents a military and political prize — the capture of a major Afghan city — that had eluded them since 2001. And it presented the government of President Ashraf Ghani, which has been alarmed about insurgent advances in the surrounding province for a year, with a demoralizing setback less than a year after the formal end of the NATO combat mission in Afghanistan. 
 
 Afghan officials vowed that a counterattack was coming, as commando forces were said to be flowing by air and road to Kunduz. But by nightfall, the city itself belonged to the Taliban. Their white flag was flying over several public areas of Kunduz, residents said. 
 
 Announcing their victory, the Taliban issued a statement saying that the group “has no intention” of looting or carrying out extrajudicial killings. 

 Militants capture government and UN buildings and city jail in one of the biggest military victories for movement since 2001 
 
 The Taliban have captured Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, taking government buildings and the city’s central prison in one of the biggest military victories for the movement since 2001. It is the most serious invasion of a provincial capital in 14 years. 
 
 The Taliban entered the city during an early morning assault on Monday, storming the regional hospital and clashing with security forces at the nearby university. 
 
 A statement from the Afghan government confirmed the city had fallen to the militants. It is the first time the insurgents have seized a major urban area since the US-led invasion in 2001. 
 
 By the afternoon, militants had reportedly captured the intelligence service headquarters, set fire to UN buildings and released hundreds of prisoners from the city’s jail, according to local journalists and residents. 
 
 
 
 Most government officials fled Kunduz early in the day, along with foreign and local NGO workers. 
 
 “The United Nations relocated all staff from Kunduz to other areas within Afghanistan,” said Dominic Medley, spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan. 
 
 The attack is the culmination of months of intense fighting that began in April, when the militants opened up new fronts to take territory in the north. 
 
 Local sources said fighting could be heard inside the city from 3am. The Taliban attacked from four different districts: Chardara to the west, Aliabad to the south-west, Khanabad to the east and Imam Saheb to the north. 
 
 A western security adviser living in the city said the Taliban had captured Zakhel and Ali Khel villages on the vital highway leading south, connecting the city to Kabul and Mazar-i Sharif through Aliabad district. 
 
 The adviser added that the Taliban had made the biggest gains in the city’s south-west, where some local communities, already disenchanted with the government, had picked up weapons and joined the insurgents. 
 
 A local reporter who visited the frontline said poor coordination between different government units allowed the Taliban to keep advancing. He said the attack seemed to be a joint offensive by militants from Kunduz and nearby Baghlan and Takhar provinces. 
 
 In addition, since spring, scores of foreign fighters have boosted the Taliban’s offensive in the north. Many pushed into Afghanistan from Pakistan when the military there launched a campaign to rid North Waziristan of militants. Others belong to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), parts of which recently pledged allegiance to Islamic State. 
 
 As in other embattled parts of the country, the Afghan security forces in Kunduz are stretched thin and are mostly fighting without foreign assistance. 
 
 The US military occasionally conducts aerial attacks around the country, most recently to push back insurgents in Helmand province, but with the Taliban entering residential areas in Kunduz, they are difficult to target with heavy artillery or airpower. 
 
 For much of the day, government officials attempted to play down the Taliban’s advances, even as Taliban fighters were posting photos on social media from inside the hospital and government buildings. 
 
 Dawlat Waziri, deputy spokesman for the defence ministry, said the army had sent reinforcements from Mazar-i Sharif and Kabul to bolster the defence of the city. He declined to say how many, only that the army had sent “enough”, and that “the Taliban will surely be defeated”. 
 
 The incursion on Kunduz is more than a PR victory for the Taliban. The city is the capital of one of Afghanistan’s wealthiest provinces, also called Kunduz, which serves as a crossroads for drugs and weapons moving between the northern provinces, and acts as a gateway to Tajikistan. 
 
 As the current fighting illustrates, the government has had problems consolidating its authority in Kunduz since foreign troops pulled out in 2013. 
 
 Much of the resistance in the province against the Taliban comes from former commanders in the western-backed Northern Alliance. Some of these commanders and their private militias have long been dogged by accusations of human rights abuses, causing widespread antipathy towards the government, and in some cases sympathy for the insurgents, in areas where abuses were rife. 
 
 Lola Cecchinel, a Kabul-based analyst, said each commander had different backers in the political establishment. “Kunduz crystalises the tensions between different political factions in Kabul,” she said, and this had caused a paralysis in the government where competing factions were loath to see one militia armed and strengthened at the expense of others. 
 
 Cecchinel added: “The central government of Kabul has no clue what to do.”
– The Taliban flag is flying over the city of Kunduz in Afghanistan today after an early morning assault—the first major city captured by the group since 2001, reports the Guardian. The loss of a provincial capital is seen as a huge embarrassment to the Afghan government, but it's far more than symbolic. The city is an important regional hub for the trafficking of weapons and drugs, and its "fall poses a dire challenge to the assertion that the Afghan security forces can hold the country’s most vital cities," observes the New York Times. At the Long War Journal, Bill Roggio writes that the fall of Kunduz is sure to resonate with plenty of Americans, too. It "would invalidate the entire US 'surge' strategy from 2009 to 2012," he writes. "Today, the Taliban are gaining ground in northern, central, eastern and southern Afghanistan, with dozens of districts falling under Taliban control over the past year." Reuters, too, calls the capture "stunning," noting that the Taliban forces freed hundreds of fellow militants from prison once they took the city.