BBC sources have also reported that the Taliban have taken control of the province’s airport, considered a commercial hub with Iran.
The city of Zaranj in Afghanistan's Nimroz province fell to the Taliban on Friday, provincial police said, making it the first provincial capital the insurgents have captured as they step up offensives.
A spokesperson for Nimroz's police, who declined to be named for security reasons, said the Taliban had been able to capture the city because of a lack of reinforcements from the government.
The insurgents have taken dozens of districts and border crossings in recent months and put pressure on several provincial capitals, including Herat in the west and Kandahar in the south, as foreign troops withdraw.
© SouthFront.org
Comment: Reuters also
reports the assassination of an Afghan media officer
The Taliban claimed responsibility for killing Dawa Khan Menapal, head of the Government Media and Information Centre (GMIC). An official in the federal interior ministry said that "the savage terrorists killed" him during Friday prayers.
"He (Menapal) was a young man who stood like a mountain in the face of enemy propaganda, and who was always a major supporter of the (Afghan) regime," said Mirwais Stanikzai, a spokesperson of the interior ministry.
Menapal had also served as a spokesperson in Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's outreach team.
The assassination was the latest in a series conducted by the hardline Islamist group to weaken Ghani's democratically elected, western backed regime.
Scores of social activists, journalists, bureaucrats, judges and public figures who were fighting to sustain a liberal Islamic regime have been killed by Taliban fighters in a bid to silence voices of dissent in the war-torn country.
A Taliban spokesperson said Menapal was "killed in a special attack by the Mujaheedin (Taliban fighters) and was punished for his actions."
In a tweet, U.S. Charge d'Affaires Ross Wilson said he was saddened and disgusted by the killing of Menapal, who he called a friend and colleague whose career was focused on providing truthful information to all Afghans.
"These murders are an affront to Afghans' human rights & freedom of speech, " he said.
On Tuesday, the district governor of Sayed Abad district in Maidan Wardak province was also assassinated in Kabul by Taliban fighters.
Sputnik reports on the Taliban's
brutal efforts to consolidate control over their conquered territory:
The Taliban have killed up to 900 people in the southern province of Kandahar in the past month and a half, local TOLO News reported, citing the province's ex-police chief Tadin Khan.
According to Khan, who is also a member of the High Council of the National Reconciliation, the group "does not believe in human rights." Their targets became detained soldiers, police officers, tribal leaders, and civillians, including even a popular comedian, all of whom they allege had ties to the Afghan government.
The Taliban forcefully took these people from their homes and executed them, Khan reportedly said.
"They possibly martyred 800 to 900 people in the past month and a half. The people have suffered enormously. The brutality that occurred in Boldak," Khan was quoted by the outlet as saying.
Taliban fighters have reclaimed control over much of the province, including its capital (also called Kandahar), as the group continues its violent seizure of power amid the withdrawal of foreign troops. This contradicts their earlier statements that the group is committed to settling the conflict peacefully.
On Tuesday, an eyewitness and a source in the Kabul police told Sputnik that a car was blown up near the house of Defense Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, after which several armed people entered the premises. Later in the day, the minister confirmed that neither he nor his family had been injured. Nevertheless, the attack did claim the lives of eight people and left another 20 injured.
The Taliban have taken responsibility for the assault.
Amid the group's large territorial gains, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has blamed the deteriorating security situation in his country on Washington's "abrupt" decision to withdraw forces. The president said that Kabul had launched a six-month security plan, under which the armed forces are set to focus on defending strategic targets, while police will ensure security in cities and strategic districts.
After he revealed that American troops would leave Afghanistan by August 31, US President Joe Biden said that he "does not trust the Taliban," but he does "trust the capacity of the Afghan military," as the forces are "more competent in terms of conducting war" if need be. His words came just as reports indicated that the Islamist group had captured a third key border crossing.
The troop pullout was one of the points of the agreement that the radical group and the United States reached in Doha in February 2020. Last month, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is more than 95 percent complete.
* A terrorist organization outlawed in Russia and many other states
Comment: Reuters also reports the assassination of an Afghan media officer Sputnik reports on the Taliban's brutal efforts to consolidate control over their conquered territory: