1,000 more US troops to be deployed as another big Afghan city falls to insurgents

KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters on Saturday seized the Afghan government’s last big northern stronghold, the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, according to news reports and provincial officials, dealing the latest staggering blow to the country’s beleaguered government.

At the same time, insurgents tightened a near-encirclement of Afghanistan’s capital, pushing to within a few dozen miles of Kabul as more American troops flew in to help with an airlift of U.S. Embassy personnel. The Biden administration said Saturday that an additional 1,000 U.S. service members would be deployed to aid in that effort, but the president again rejected criticism of the U.S. decision to end its overall Afghan mission by the end of this month.

“One more year, or five more years, of U.S.