Afghan security forces are struggling in their attempt to wrest the major city of Kunduz back from Taliban militants.
The government lost control of Kunduz on Monday, the first time the Taliban have taken over a provincial capital since 2001.
As the fighting rages, civilians are stuck in the middle.
Doctors Without Borders said its trauma hospital in Kunduz has been overwhelmed with patients. The aid organization reported that its doctors treated at least 171 wounded people, including 46 children, in the first 36 hours of the fighting.
“The majority of patients had sustained gunshot wounds, and surgeons have been treating severe abdominal, limb and head injuries,” Doctors Without Borders said in a statement. Anticipating more casualties, the organization is rushing medical supplies by road and air to the embattled city.
“We don’t know what to do and where to go,” a male resident of Kunduz told CNN by phone Wednesday. He spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retribution.
He said shrapnel had struck his hand after he was accidentally caught in a firefight between government and Taliban forces.
“I was near the main roundabout of Kunduz when the fight between government forces and the Taliban became intense and the Taliban fighters were firing back meters away from me,” the man said.
“I was running to get to a safe place when shrapnel hit my hand I was wounded.”
The man said shops are closed, there is a citywide power blackout, and it is becoming difficult to find food.
“Kunduz has turned into a ghost city,” he said.
The effort to retake the strategically important city began Tuesday, but it is being hindered by a shortage of ground troops, said Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, a spokesman for the police chief of Kunduz province.
Hundreds of reinforcements that were supposed to arrive in Kunduz are still stuck in neighboring Baghlan province, where the Taliban have blocked the highway, he said Wednesday.
Taliban claim advances on airport
The picture of events on the ground in Kunduz remained fuzzy, with each side claiming to have inflicted heavy damage on the other.
Airstrikes by the Afghan military and the U.S.-led coalition have killed more than 100 Taliban insurgents, including the group’s top commander in the province, Hussaini said. The Taliban denied that the commander was dead and said he would release an audio message.
But the bombardment from the sky hasn’t translated into clear gains on the ground.
Hussaini acknowledged that government forces had to pull back from the police chief’s compound in the city Tuesday evening after having retaken it earlier in the day.
He said Afghan security forces were in Kunduz airport and other city areas Wednesday.
The Taliban said in an email that they had surrounded the Kunduz airport area and were advancing toward the airport itself.
‘Obviously, this is a setback’
The U.S.-led coalition ended its combat mission in Afghanistan last year, handing over the lead to Afghan forces while remaining in a training and assistance role.
“Obviously, this is a setback for the Afghan security forces,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said of the fall of Kunduz. “But we’ve seen them respond in recent weeks and months to the challenges they face, and they’re doing the same thing in Kunduz right now.”
In addition to the U.S. airstrikes, the NATO-led international mission in Afghanistan said there were “limited coalition forces in the Kunduz area advising and assisting” Afghan security forces.
“We’ve seen U.S. aircraft supporting the Afghan government and the Afghan security forces because they can’t do it alone just yet,” said Mark Hertling, a retired U.S. Army general. “You’re also going to see U.S. special forces — special operating forces — supporting the commandos in Afghanistan as they attempt to reinforce Kunduz.”
U.S. and German forces regularly operate in the area, advising Afghan forces.
Thousands reportedly flee violence
The fierce fighting in a major population center has caused a high number of civilian casualties.
A public health official in Kunduz reported that 16 people had been killed and more than 150 wounded, according to journalist Sune Engel Rasmussen in Kabul.
As many as 6,000 civilians are reported to have fled the city because of the violence, the United Nations said Wednesday.
“I am deeply concerned about the situation in Kunduz following the Taliban’s attack on the city,” said Nicholas Haysom, the U.N. special representative for Afghanistan. “The reports of extrajudicial executions, including of healthcare workers, abductions, denial of medical care and restrictions on movement out of the city are particularly disturbing.”
Insurgents accused of using human shields
It’s unclear how many casualties the Afghan security forces have suffered in the city.
Acting Defense Minister Masoom Stanekzai said Tuesday afternoon that 17 Afghan troops had been killed and 18 more wounded in fighting across Afghanistan in the previous 24 hours. But he didn’t provide a toll specifically for Kunduz.
President Ashraf Ghani accused the Taliban of using civilians as human shields.
“The Afghan government is a responsible government, so it cannot carry out airstrikes on a city and on the houses of its people,” he said.
Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that initial reports suggest the Taliban were able to infiltrate, rather than fight their way into, the city.
The militants released hundreds of inmates from a prison in the city as they overran Afghan forces.
On Wednesday, Ghani’s office announced that he has appointed Hamdullah Daneshi as Kunduz province’s acting governor.
But will such shuffling make a difference on the ground? Can Afghanistan’s government — especially without the same level of active coalition military backing — not only retake Kunduz, but fend off future assaults elsewhere?
Final answers are still a long way away.
