By Javid Hosseini & Samaneh Akhgari

After its second rise in 2005, the Taliban gradually began to capture territory and form a shadow government. The group also captured some remote areas and established its dominance over them. These victories have been on the rise with a mild speed for the past 15 years, but after the inauguration of President Biden's government and his decision to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan unconditionally, this process was accelerated and April 14, 2021, can be considered as the turning point of this process.

The Institute for East Strategic Studies (IESS), whose main focus is the developments of Afghanistan, seeks to provide a real picture of the fall and recapture of these areas via monitoring the Taliban's operations. Accordingly, IESS has mapped areas overtaken by the Taliban since April 14, 2021.This map will be updated according to the field developments. See the map in high resolution here

Methodology
The report's data is collected from open sources such as security and local officials’ statements in each province, credible Afghan media reports, and the Taliban news outlets. Meanwhile, it should be noted that our criterion for confirming the fall of a district is not merely the claims of the Taliban, and we only add it to the fallen areas after it is confirmed by other sources.

Due to lack of access to the updated geographical map of Afghanistan, the map used in this report has been updated as much as possible by IESS, based on the latest administrative changes and divisions announced by Afghanistan Independent Directorate of Local Governance.
(Despite its high accuracy, this map may contain some minor errors.)