Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Wednesday morning paid a visit to the besieged northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, accompanied by powerful warlord Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum and hundreds of special forces, as the Taliban took control of eight provincial centers, including six in a week’s time. 

On Tuesday, the marauding insurgents ran over Faizabad city, the provincial center of northern Badakshan province which borders China, Pakistan, and Tajikistan. Fighting raged for many days prior to the fall of the districts. However, the Afghan National and Defense Security Forces retreated on Monday. 

Except for few pockets, including Mazar-e-Sharif, the entire northern part--once considered as the bastion for anti-Taliban resistance--has fallen to the Taliban. The fall of the north is the biggest jolt for the embattled Afghan government which had been hoping for the national resistance and uprising forces to stem the Taliban offensives. 

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesperson, Wednesday claimed that they took control of the airport in Kunduz. The city has already been under the control of insurgents but the Afghan forces had been holding in the nearby airport. 

Interestingly, a video, that has gone viral on social media platforms, of the airport showed that an MI-35 attack helicopter, which was gifted by India to the Afghan Air Force, had also fallen into the hands of the Taliban. 

In the south, especially in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, and Kandahar, the capital of Kandahar province, the Taliban has been struggling. Hundreds of its fighters were killed in Lashkar Gah and Kandahar in the last week, reports said.

Meanwhile, the Taliban-targeted attack against the Afghan Air Force pilots continued, with the latest one being killed on Tuesday, according to the Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid. The air force has remained only a conventional advantage on the side of the government.  

In the last few months, around ten pilots have been killed by the insurgent group in targeted attacks. Also, the Taliban has openly claimed that they would continue to kill pilots as their airstrikes cause immense casualties. 

Pilots are costly resources as they take years of training. The continued killings have gripped these pilots with fear as reports claimed many of them have stopped going out altogether and been avoiding staying in their own homes. 

A Guardian report claimed that many airforce servicemen have quit their jobs out of fear of being assassinated by the Taliban. Afghan National Security Advisor Hamidullah Mohib, in an interview earlier, had acknowledged that they could not afford to lose pilots, calling them “critical assets.”