As clashes continue and intensify, hundreds more have taken up arms against the Taliban in support of the government forces, this time in Herat, Patkia, Ghor and Kunduz provinces.

Those who took up arms said they will not allow their villages to fall to the Taliban who they claim would damage the country’s infrastructure. 

Former vice president Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum, who is in Turkey for treatment, said Sunday he will soon return to his home province of Jawzjan in northern Afghanistan to suppress the Taliban in the north, after consultation with President Ghani and the Defense Ministry.

“I predicted this years ago,” Dostum said, referring to Taliban offensives in northern provinces. “All districts, tanks were handed over to the Taliban without resistance. I don’t know what the plan is?”