Taliban to control 70 percent of Afghanistan

The Taliban on Monday took control of another provincial capital in Afghanistan, an official said, the insurgents pressing on with their relentless offensive as American and NATO forces finalise their pullout from the war-torn country. The militants have ramped up their push across much of Afghanistan in recent weeks, turning their guns on provincial capitals after taking district after district and large swaths of land in the mostly rural countryside even as they wage an assassination campaign targeting senior government officials in the capital, Kabul.