After Ghazni and Heart, Taliban claims to have seized Afghanistan’s second largest city ‘Kandahar’

“Kandahar is completely conquered. The Mujahideen reached Martyrs’ Square in the city,” a Taliban spokesman tweeted on an officially recognized account – a claim also backed by a resident, who told AFP news agency government forces appeared to have withdrawn en masse to a military facility outside the city.

Citing witnesses, the Associated Press earlier reported the Taliban had seized the governor’s office and other buildings and that officials had flown to Kabul.

Earlier on Thursday, the Taliban seized Herat, Afghanistan's third-largest city and captured another district capital just 150 kilometres (95 miles) from Kabul.

An AFP correspondent had earlier filmed the Taliban flag flying over the police headquarters in Herat, while the insurgents tweeted "the enemy fled... Dozens of military vehicles, weapons and ammunition fell into the hands of the Mujahideen". Herat – about 150 kilometres from the Iranian border – is home to veteran warlord Ismail Khan, who for weeks has been rallying his forces to make a stand against the Taliban and was seen by many as Herat's last hope.

A day earlier, the interior ministry had confirmed the fall of Ghazni, which lies along the major Kabul-Kandahar highway and serves as a gateway between the capital and militant strongholds in the south.

"The enemy took control," spokesman Mirwais Stanikzai said in a message to media, adding later the

Authorities in Kabul have now effectively lost most of northern and western Afghanistan and are left holding a scattered archipelago of contested cities also dangerously at risk.

The conflict has escalated dramatically since May, when US-led forces began the final stage of a troop withdrawal due to end later this month following a 20-year occupation.

The loss of Ghazni piles more pressure on the country's already overstretched airforce, needed to bolster Afghanistan's dispersed security forces who have increasingly been cut off from reinforcements by road.