The Taliban said Tuesday they are withdrawing from Kunduz, a strategic northern city that briefly fell to the insurgents last month, as an Afghan official said life there is returning to normal.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in an email to media members that the group's fighters are retreating to avoid further civilian casualties.
Hamdullah Danishi, the acting governor of Kunduz province, said shops and markets in the city had reopened and residents were venturing out of their homes. He said troops were continuing to search the city, suspecting that some insurgents had remained behind.
"Afghan security forces are in control of the whole city," said Gen. Mohammad Qasim Jungulbagh, provincial police chief of Kunduz.
Taliban insurgents were present on the outskirts of the city, and were mostly holed up in the Chahar Dara district, a longtime stronghold, Jungulbagh said.
After two weeks of fighting, local people are venturing out and shops are open again, said Sultan Mohammad, 32, a Kunduz resident. He said electricity was being restored but problems with the water supply remained.
The Taliban stormed Kunduz on September 28 and held the city for three days before being driven back. Exact numbers of dead and wounded are unclear, but believed to be in the hundreds. The Public Health Ministry has said that more than 60 civilians have been killed, and around 800 wounded in the fighting.
Meanwhile US and Afghan forces completed a major air and ground operation against an al-Qaeda training site Sunday in southern Kandahar province in which numerous militants were killed, according to a statement released Tuesday by NATO.
The statement said the operation, which began October 7, was the result of months of intelligence and planning. The US conducted 63 airstrikes while Afghan forces engaged in several ground battles al-Qaeda fighters at two related sites, it said.
"This is one of the largest joint ground-assault operations we have ever conducted in Afghanistan," Brig. Gen. Wilson Shoffner, a US spokesperson in Afghanistan, said in the statement.
"Aside from validating the accuracy of our intelligence, we were able to seize a large amount of data and weapons. Based on the digital media equipment collected from the site, it also appears that this was the location of a large media cell.
