A city in southwestern Afghanistan has become the primary capital to fall to the Taliban since the militants launched a sweeping offensive earlier this year.
Local officials said the Taliban had captured Zaranj, in Nimroz province, during a major blow to government forces.
The insurgents still make rapid advances across the country as foreign troops withdraw.
They have taken swathes of countryside and are now targeting key cities.
Other provincial capitals struggling include Herat within the west, and therefore the southern cities of Kandahar and Lashkar Gah.
The UN’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, on Friday said the war there had entered a “new, deadlier, and more destructive phase”, with quite 1,000 civilians killed within the past month.
She warned that the country was heading for “catastrophe”, and called on the UN Security Council to issue an “unambiguous statement that attacks against cities must stop now”.
Later on Friday, the united kingdom government advised all its citizens in Afghanistan to go away due to the worsening security situation.
City ‘fell without a fight’
Taliban insurgents claimed victory in Zaranj – a serious trading hub near the Iranian border – during a post shared on Twitter.
“This is that the beginning, and see how other provinces fall in our hands very soon,” a Taliban commander told Reuters press agency.
Pictures posted on social media showed civilians looting items from government buildings. Taliban insurgents were photographed inside the local airport and posing at the doorway to the town.
The militants made a sustained bid to seize the town after capturing surrounding districts.
But Nimroz’s Deputy Governor Roh Gul Khairzad told reporters that Zaranj had fallen “without a fight”.
She and other local officials complained of a scarcity of reinforcements from the Afghan government.
“The city was under threat for a short time, but nobody from the central government listened to us,” Ms Khairzad said.
The last time the Taliban captured a capital was in 2016, once they briefly held the northern city of Kunduz.
The militants launched a serious campaign in May, to coincide with the phased withdrawal folks and Nato forces after 20 years of military operations. The capture of Zaranj will increase their momentum, analysts say.
Overnight, US and Afghan forces launched air strikes on the group’s positions in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province.
Government troops have vowed to not lose the strategically significant city, and fighting there has been fierce. Officials have urged civilians to evacuate, with thousands trapped or fleeing for his or her lives.
‘An affront to human rights
Earlier on Friday, the director of Afghanistan’s government media centre was assassinated by Taliban militants within the capital, Kabul. Dawa Khan Menapal was shot dead as he left a mosque in his car.
The Taliban said he had been “punished for his deeds”.
Afghan government colleagues condemned the killing as shocking and cowardly.
US diplomat to Afghanistan Ross Wilson tweeted that he was “saddened and disgusted” by the killing, adding: “These murders are an affront to Afghans’ human rights and freedom of speech.”
Days earlier, an attack on the Afghan defence minister’s house in Kabul left a minimum of eight people dead. The minister, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, wasn’t reception at the time.
At a UN Security Council meeting on Friday, representatives voiced concerns over the growing bloodshed.
Afghanistan’s envoy Ghulam Isaczai called on the safety Council to require action to pressure the militants to halt their attacks and participate in meaningful peace talks.
“It is our collective responsibility to prevent them from destroying Afghanistan and threatening the planet community,” he said.
Meanwhile, the chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission told the BBC that countries within the region especially needed to inform the Taliban that coming to power through violence would mean that their government wouldn’t be recognised.
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