HERAT: Taliban fighters threatened the provincial capital of Farah inwestern Afghanistan on Tuesday, with fighting underway on the outskirts ofthe city where government forces were defending two police districts,officials and residents said.
A Farah government official and several residents said security forces wereengaged in police districts two and three, around 4 km (2.5 miles) from thecity center.
“The Taliban are moving very fast, if the government does not take seriousand speedy action, the province is going to collapse to Taliban,” saidHamidullah, a resident of the city reached by telephone.
Other residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears ofpossible Taliban retribution, said Taliban forces began their operation ataround 2.00 am (2130 GMT Monday), attacking the city from severaldirections.
Noorulhaq Khaliqi, a military spokesman in Farah, said Afghan securityforces had repelled the attack but some residents said the Taliban hadalready set up checkpoints around the city and were checking identity cardsand preventing people from fleeing.
Locals said shops, schools and government offices were closed.
Mohammad Radmanish, a spokesman for the defense ministry in Kabul said theyhave ordered security forces from neighboring provinces to travel to Farahto protect civilians and government buildings.
Two members of the Afghan forces were killed and four were injured, saidRadmanish.
A local administrator said the attack by Taliban insurgents was an exampleof intelligence failure.
“Taliban has entered our city with a full might…they are equipped withheavy arms and night vision,” said Dadullah Qane, a provincial councilmember of Farah.
Taliban issued a statement to declare that they have captured checkpointsand an office of intelligence department where senior police officialsworked.
Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a spokesman for Taliban said large scale attacks willcontinue in Farah and he warned civilians to remain inside their houses.
“Mujahideen have nothing to do with civilians, only military positions arethe target,” Ahmadi said in a statement on Tuesday.
The fighting adds to the growing number of crisis points around Afghanistansince the Taliban began their annual spring offensive last month, includinga series of deadly suicide attacks in the capital, Kabul.
District centers have been lost or threatened in the northern provinces ofBaghlan and Badakhshan and there has been heavy fighting in Faryab in thenorthwest and Ghazni and Zabul, south of Kabul.
Farah, a remote and sparsely populated province on the border with Iran,has seen months of heavy fighting, with hundreds of police and soldierskilled and severe losses inflicted even on elite special forces units.
Residents in Farah have long warned that the city was vulnerable. Thegovernor of the province stepped down in January, blaming the worseningsecurity situation and what he said was political interference andcorruption.
The province, which also borders the opium-rich Taliban heartland ofHelmand province, has key smuggling routes into Iran. Hundreds of fightershave moved there as US and Afghan forces have stepped up operations inHelmand.
A doctor from the provincial hospital in Farah, who did not want to beidentified, said so far two dead and 16 wounded members of the Afghansecurity forces, as well as five wounded civilians including women andchildren, had been taken to the hospital.