Afghan Military Denies Talibans Claim Of Capturing 169 Districts - UrduPoint

Afghan General Dawlat Waziri, a former spokesman for the Defense Ministry, denied in a comment to Sputnik the Taliban movement's (banned in Russia) statement about capturing 169 districts across the country.

Over the past two months, the Islamist militants have seized 167 out of roughly 400 Afghan districts, and on Wednesday, they reportedly took control of two more districts in the provinces of Herat and Zabul. With the capture of 169 districts, the Taliban claim control of 85% of Afghanistan's territory.

"The Taliban's claim is false because they have said in the past that we have control over 60% and 70% of the land, but they did not have a burial ground for their leaders in such an area," Waziri said.

General Ajmal Shinwari, a spokesman for the Afghan security and defense sector, said that the districts had not fallen to the Taliban, adding that the military had recaptured 14 settlements.

"The Afghan Armed Forces are engaged in various defenses and in a short time you will see that our forces will be renewed and strengthened and we will begin to strike hard at the enemy. Now is a really difficult time," Shinwari told reporters.

The departure of foreign soldiers from the country, scheduled to finish by the end of August, has been met with a surge in violence, with dozens of districts in Afghanistan's rural north falling to the Taliban in the past weeks.