Taliban seize Logar province near Kabul, launch multi-pronged assault on Mazar-e-Sharif

Afghan lawmaker said Taliban captured the Logar province, just south of capital Kabul and also launched a multi-pronged assault early Saturday on Mazar-e-Sharif.

The Taliban seized a province just south of Afghanistan's capital and launched a multi-pronged assault early Saturday on Mazar-e-Sharif, a major city in the north defended by powerful former warlords, Afghan officials said. Homa Ahmadi, a lawmaker from Logar, says the Taliban control the entire province, including its capital, and reached a district in the neighboring Kabul province on Saturday. That puts the insurgents less than 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the nation's capital.