The Taliban, the main Afghan insurgent group, controls about half of Afghanistan's total district centers, General Mark Milley, the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, adding the group seems to have gained “strategic momentum”.

"Strategic momentum appears to be sort of with the Taliban," General Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. The group is controlling over 200 of the country’s 419 districts. 

He said while the insurgent group had not taken over any provincial capitals they were already putting pressure on half of the country’s total 34 provincial centers.

The Taliban’s recent offensive in the last two months has internally displaced over 300,000 people. Fighting is still going on in several district centers as the Afghan security forces launched a counter-offensive to recapture fallen cities. Last week, the government forces recaptured over 10 districts.   

The security situation deteriorated rapidly as soon as US President Joe Biden announced the unconditional withdrawal of all forces from Afghanistan on 15 April this year. Biden said the US will end military presence by August 31 this year.  

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday said the U.S. would “keep an eye on” al-Qaida after the withdrawal of foreign forces. However, he added the US will continue over the horizon mission concentrating on targeting al-Qaeda cadre, not the Taliban. 

“Our major focus going forward is to make sure that violence, terrorism, cannot be exported from Afghanistan to our homeland, and so we’ll maintain the capability to be able to not only observe that but also address that if it does emerge,” Austin was quoted as saying by AP. 

(SAM)