Taliban controls 85% of Afghan territory, Taliban official says
People gather with their heavy weapons to support Afghanistan security forces against the Taliban, in Guzara district, Herat province on June 23
Taliban official Shahabuddin Delawar declared in Moscow on Friday that the Taliban control 85 per cent of Afghanistan's territory.
After nearly two decades of fighting, foreign forces, including the US, are retreating, emboldening Taliban insurgents to try to take new territory in Afghanistan.
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Meanwhile, The withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan is more than 90 per cent completed, the Pentagon's Central Command announced Tuesday.
CentCom said it had officially handed over seven former US bases to the Afghan security forces and had evacuated the equivalent of nearly 1,000 C-17 air freighter loads of equipment from the country, ahead of the September deadline to complete the pullout.
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On Friday US forces handed over the sprawling Bagram air base north of Kabul, the main centre of US military operations in the country for most of the past two decades of conflict.
Tuesday's announcement underscored that most of the process of withdrawing US military and civilian personnel ordered by President Joe Biden in April had been completed.
At the time of Biden's order, there were officially 2,500 US troops and 16,000 private contractors.
According to reports, there were also some 1,000 US special forces operating in Afghanistan at the time as well not included in the official tally.
(With inputs from agencies)