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 Tuesday's victory came despite signs that the Islamist militant
movement was stepping up its offensive in the broader war, six
months after most foreign troops left the country.
A day earlier, a Taliban car bomber and six gunmen launched a
spectacular attack on the Afghan parliament in Kabul. All of the
assailants were killed. One civilian also died and at least 30
people were wounded.
On the front lines just outside Kunduz city in the north, Afghan
army and police drove the Taliban back from Chardara district, which
the insurgents had captured two days before, provincial police chief
Abdul Saboor Nasrati said.
"New reinforcements arrived in Kunduz from northern provinces. They
have inflicted heavy casualties on the insurgents and pushed them
back from Chardara district," Nasrati said.
"We are pursuing them and the gun battle is still ongoing."
The brief capture of Chardara brought fighting to a bridge just 3 km
(two miles) away from the Kunduz governor's compound, raising fears
that the insurgents could overrun the city center.
That would mark the first provincial capital to fall to the Taliban
since U.S.-led military intervention toppled the hard-line Islamist
regime, which had sheltered the al Qaeda architects of the Sept. 11,
2001 attacks on American cities.
 "SURGE IN PATIENTS"
Heman Nagarathnam, Medecins Sans Frontieres' head of programs in
Afghanistan, said the group's hospital in Kunduz city was still
operating normally and there were no plans to evacuate staff.
Speaking from Kunduz, he said the fighting had moved closer to the
city and there had been a noticeable increase in the number of
Afghan security personnel and checkpoints.
"We have seen a surge in patients from Chardara and some from
Dasht-i-Archi (district), but mostly from Chardara," he told
Reuters.
Airstrikes and mortar attacks in Chardara were making it difficult
for people to reach the trauma center, he added.
The violence in Kabul, Kunduz province and elsewhere has put
Afghanistan's security forces under more pressure than at any time
since most NATO combat troops withdrew, and there appears to be no
easy way out of the crisis.
"The war continues to gain intensity," said Graeme Smith, a veteran
Afghan analyst at International Crisis Group.
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"Even more concerning, the nature of the attacks is becoming more
serious: rather than pot-shots at convoys, we're now talking about
battles that last for days."
"The loss of a provincial capital would have profound effects, even
if the city was overrun only for a matter of hours," Smith said.
President Ashraf Ghani met lawmakers from Kunduz at his Kabul palace
to discuss the crisis, vowing "serious measures to retake lost
territories and clear (the) northeastern zone of terrorists".
Kunduz was also under siege last summer and the city center held. In
the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in the south, insurgents
threatened the provincial capital a few years ago, but were beaten
back.
U.S. officials in Washington said it was unlikely Kunduz would fall
into Taliban hands, and disputed the idea that recent attacks
signified the insurgents were gaining ground against NATO-trained
Afghan forces.
"Although the insurgents have executed a number of violent attacks
since the announcement of the 2015 fighting season, including the
attack on parliament, the (Afghan security forces) have demonstrated
their growing capability to provide security," a State Department
spokesman said.
(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington and Krista
Mahr in New Delhi; Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Mike
Collett-White)
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