Afghan City of Kunduz Retaken From Taliban

U.S. and Afghan forces battled street-by-street against pockets of Taliban fighters who remained holed up in Kunduz on Tuesday.

(WSJ)- Afghan officials and residents said, recapturing the city’s main square the day after the militants raised their flag there in a lightning assault.

By afternoon, teams of U.S. and Afghan ground troops backed by U.S. airstrikes had pushed the front line to the city’s edges, they said.

“Commando units are in the city and the Taliban have been pushed back to the outskirts,” said Kunduz police spokesman Mahfouzullah Akbari, adding that heavy fighting was continuing in several neighborhoods. “The Taliban are hiding in civilian houses.”

Monday’s offensive came days after the first anniversary of the Taliban’s last storming of Kunduz, Afghanistan’s fourth-largest city, and the first to fall to the group since they were ousted from power in 2001. It dealt a major blow to government efforts to defeat the increasingly deadly insurgency.

The assault echoed last year’s events in Kunduz, when the insurgents caught U.S.-backed government forces off-guard and seized the city in a matter of hours. By Monday night, many government and security force buildings had fallen to the Taliban, including the headquarters of the provincial council and a number of police stations.

The U.S. military declined to provide details on the operation.

“There are U.S. troops in Kunduz province, but because these are ongoing operations, we can’t detail the current disposition of enabler forces,” it said in a statement.

(PHOTO: JALIL REZAYEE/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY via WSJ)

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