Afghan Defense and Security forces’ chief Gen Yasin Zia on Thursday said Zherai and Panjwai districts in Kandahar province which came under attack by Taliban two weeks back, have been cleared of the Taliban, TOLOnews reported. 

Blaming the Taliban for using civilians as a shield, Gen Zia said their operations moved slowly to protect civilians’ lives. Other officials from the Defense Ministry said military operations will continue to assist the displaced people and families to return home. 

Colonel Amanullah, the commander of ANDSF in Panjwai district, said, “In joint cooperation and coordination between the national police and the national army and rest of the security agencies, we managed to recapture all fallen areas.” The district came under attack from the Taliban nearly after nine years and was considered as one of the most secure districts in Kandahar until now. 

The Taliban, in the last few months, has been seen increasing its activities around districts and provincial centres in the country. In many cases, they mounted a coordinated and massive offensive to forcibly capture those centers e.g. Lashkargarh in Kandahar, and Kunduz city in Kunduz provinces. 

The Taliban’s offensive in, and around, district centres in Afghanistan led to the displacement of many families, for which the group has come under severe criticism from the European Union and US special representative Zalmay Khalilzad.

After the Taliban attacked Lashkargah last month, the US airforce conducted a series of airstrikes against the insurgent group to assist the Afghan Forces who found it difficult to deal with the situation.

Since the signing of the US-Taliban deal, the US largely stopped their combat missions in Afghanistan which left the Afghan forces fighting without superior air support. The Afghan airforce, with highly constrained capacity, can’t provide air support all around the country, thus are putting ground troops under heavy pressure to engage with the Taliban without air support.