Kabul: Afghanistan’s second largest city “Khandahar” was captured by the Talibans on Friday. A Taliban’s spoke person tweeted on an officially recognized account, that Khandahar is completely conquered. The Mujahideen reached Martyrs’ Square in the city.”

Talibans claimed the capture of Afghans second largest city Khandahar, which would leave just the capital and pockets of other territory in the government’s hands.

According to the media sources, the Afghan government has offered the Taliban a power sharing deal in return for an end to fighting in the country. The Afghan government has submitted a proposal to Qatar as a mediator.  The Taliban seized the strategic Afghan city of Ghazni Thursday, just 150 kilometres (95 miles) from Kabul, their most important gain in a lightning offensive that has seen them overrun 10 provincial capitals in a week.

The interior ministry confirmed the fall of the city, which lies along the major Kabul-Kandahar highway and serves as a gateway between the capital and strongholds in the south. “The enemy took control,” spokesman Mirwais Stanikzai said in a message to media, adding fighting and resistance was still going on.

The government has now effectively lost most of northern and western Afghanistan and is left holding a scattered archipelago of contested cities also dangerously at risk of falling to the Taliban. The conflict has escalated dramatically since May, when US-led forces began the final stage of a troop withdrawal due to end later this month following a 20-year occupation.