KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban have captured the capital of one of Afghanistan’s western provinces, Afghan officials said on Friday, a symbolic milestone in the insurgents’ relentless march to retake power in the country.
Zaranj, the provincial capital of Nimruz on the Afghanistan-Iran border, has collapsed and is now in the hands of the insurgents, according to Rohgul Khairzad, the deputy governor of Nimruz, and Haji Baz Mohammad Naser, the head of the provincial council.
It is the first provincial capital to be captured by the insurgent group since the Biden administration said it would completely withdraw American troops from Afghanistan by next month. The Taliban have besieged a host of such cities for weeks, and the likely fall of Zaranj, a city of 160,000 people, is the Taliban’s first major breakthrough.
The city’s collapse occurred on the same day that a senior…
