The Taliban on Saturday claimed the capture of the strategically important city Sheberghan, capital of the northern Jowzjan province. It is the second provincial capital in Afghanistan  to fall to the hardline militant group, which took the strategically important  Zaranj in the southern province of Nimroz on Friday in the country’s ongoing civil war between government forces and the Islamist militia.

While Sheberghan is located on the national primary ring road that connects Kabul, Puli Khumri, Mazari Sharif, Sheberghān, Maymana, Herat, Kandahar, Ghazni, and Maidan Shar, Zaranj is on the border with Iran.

A Taliban spokesperson claimed that the fighters had seized the governor's office, police headquarters, intelligence headquarters and other related buildings in Sheberghan from Afghan forces and the militia loyal to former Northern Alliance warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum.

However, the claim could not be independently verified.

The city is home to Dostum, who only returned to Afghanistan this week from medical treatment in Turkey.

Earlier, it was reported that at least 10 Afghan soldiers and a commander of armed members belonging to the Dostum's militia group in the northern province of Jowzjan were killed.

Soon after taking the city, the Taliban orchestrated a prison break in  Sheberghanand released at least 700 inmates. According to sources in the Afghanistan government, the prisoners are Taliban fighters and they will join forces with the group.

The Taliban have taken dozens of districts and border crossings in recent months and put pressure on several provincial capitals, including Herat in the west and Kandahar in the south, as foreign forces pull out, the Express Tribune reported.

Taliban sources said the group was celebrating and Zaranj's fall would lift the morale of their fighters.

The capture of Sheberghan comes a day after the head of the Afghan government’s media information department was shot dead in Kabul in an attack claimed by the Taliban.

After a failed assassination attempt on the country’s defense minister Bismillah Mohammadi in Kabul Tuesday, the Taliban warned they were now targeting senior administration officials in retaliation for increased airstrikes.

(SAM)