The Taliban seized three more provincial capitals in Afghanistan and a local army headquarters in a blitz across the country’s northeast, officials said on Wednesday, with the insurgents now controlling some two-thirds of the nation as the US and NATO finalise their withdrawal after its decades-long war there. 

The fall of the capitals of Badakhshan and Baghlan provinces to the northeast and Farah province to the west put increasing pressure on the country’s central government to stem the tide of the advance, even as it has lost a major base in Kunduz.