Afghan government seeks to hold capital as Taliban takes Jalalabad

Taliban insurgents took control of the key eastern Afghanistan city of Jalalabad without a fight on Sunday, leaving the territory controlled by the crumbling government to little more than the capital Kabul.

The United States was sending more troops to the encircled capital to help evacuate its civilians after the Taliban's lightning advances brought the extremist group to the door of Kabul in a matter of days.

Just last week, a US intelligence estimate said Kabul could hold out for at least three months.

The fall of Jalalabad has also given the Taliban control of a road leading to the Pakistan city of Peshawar, one of the main highways into landlocked Afghanistan.

It followed the Taliban's seizure of the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif late on Saturday, also with little fighting.

"There are no clashes taking place right now in Jalalabad because the governor has surrendered to the Taliban," a Jalalabad-based Afghan official told Reuters. "Allowing passage to the Taliban was the only way to save civilian lives."

A second security official in the city said the Taliban had agreed to give safe passage to government officials and security forces while they leave Jalalabad.

The decision to surrender was taken to avoid "casualties and destruction", the person added.

After US-led forces withdrew the bulk of the their remaining troops in the last month, the Taliban campaign has accelerated as the Afghan military's defences appeared to collapse.

US President Joe Biden on Saturday authorised the deployment of 5,000 troops to help evacuate citizens and ensure an "orderly and safe" drawdown of US military personnel. A US defence official said that included 1,000 newly approved troops from the 82nd Airborne Division.

Taliban fighters entered Mazar-i-Sharif on Saturday virtually unopposed as security forces escaped up the highway to neighbouring Uzbekistan, about 80 km to the north, provincial officials said. Unverified video on social media showed Afghan army vehicles and men in uniforms crowding the iron bridge between the Afghan town of Hairatan and Uzbekistan.

Two influential militia leaders supporting the government - Atta Mohammad Noor and Abdul Rashid Dostum - also fled. Noor said on social media that the Taliban had been handed control of Balkh province, where Mazar-i-Sharif is located, due to a "conspiracy".

In a statement late on Saturday, the Taliban said its rapid gains showed it was popularly accepted by the Afghan people and reassured both Afghans and foreigners that they would be safe.

TheTaliban "will, as always, protect their life, property and honour and create a peaceful and secure environment for its beloved nation," it said, adding that diplomats and aid workers would also face no problems.

Western governments were accelerating plans to evacuate their embassy staff, citizens and Afghans who had worked for them.

The British ambassador will leave the country by Sunday evening, UK media reported. The country, which was sending 600 troops, sped up the departure of Britons due to the rising risk that the Taliban would overrun the airport, the reports said.

Biden said his administration had told Taliban officials in Qatar that any action that put US personnel at risk "will be met with a swift and strong US military response".