First Vice President of Afghanistan Amrullah Saleh said that it will continue its fight against the Taliban and the government would do all it could to support the Afghan forces and the public uprising forces. "In today's meeting on national security chaired by President Ashraf Ghani, it was decided with conviction and resolve that we stand firm against Taliban terrorists and do everything to strengthen the national resistance by all means and ways," Saleh said in a tweet on Friday.
Saleh also said the Taliban will be defeated and that he will never surrender to the group, according to the Tolo News channel. He said he will not bow to any deal named peace with the nature of surrender. "I will never accept Taliban domination on the people of Afghanistan under any deal that is dictated and imposed by Taliban," Saleh added.
According to media reports, the Taliban has captured six provincial capitals of Afghanistan in the past 24 hours pushing the number of provinces overrun by the terrorists to 18. Kandahar, Helmand, Herat, Badghis, Ghor, Logar, Zabul and Oruzgan provinces fell to the Taliban in the past 24 hours. The Afghan government still holds Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif and Jalalabad, near the Pakistani border in the east.
The Taliban has in a statement asked government officials to surrender to them and that they will be forgiven.
Tolo News reported citing some politicians and lawmakers as saying that the current situation in Afghanistan is due to the government's "wrong policies."
"Nowhere in the world, it is in a way that those who are responsible do not feel their responsibility towards the people and the government… and apply policies that do not favour national interests," former vice president Ahmad Zia Massoud was quoted as saying by the news channel.
"They were busy in taking seats and land grabbing and were seeking ways to fill their pockets," Asif Sediqqi, a senator, said.
