AFGHAN President Ashraf Ghani vowed yesterday to recapture the northern city of Kunduz yesterday after its shock fall to the Taliban.

In a televised address to the nation, Mr Ghani said the military had launched a counteroffensive on the city.

Security forces were “retaking government buildings … and reinforcements, including special forces and commandos, are either there or on their way there,” he added.

“The enemy has sustained heavy casualties,” claimed the president, urging citizens to trust Afghan troops and not give in to “fear and terror.”

In Kunduz, Taliban gunmen patrolled the streets, setting up checkpoints, searching for government supporters and sealing off exit routes.

They also freed 500 inmates from the local prison, including scores of their own men.

A bank manager who left Kunduz for Kabul late on Monday said the Taliban had emptied at least two banks of cash and seized vehicles.

On Monday, the prosperous city of 300,000 inhabitants became the first major urban area to fall to the Taliban since the US-led invasion in 2001.

Security forces were taken by surprise and quickly overwhelmed by the well-co-ordinated, multipronged Taliban assault.

Acting Defence Minister Masoom Stankizai claimed that guerillas, including recruits from China and central Asia, had taken advantage of the recent Eid al-Adha holiday — the busiest season in the city — to infiltrate Kunduz and prepare for Monday’s assault.

The number of dead and wounded in the fighting was unclear.

Public Health Ministry spokesman Wahidullah Mayar said that Kunduz hospitals had received “172 wounded patients and 16 dead bodies so far.”

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said its trauma centre in Kunduz had taken in 129 wounded since early Monday morning, including 20 women and 39 children.

Of the total, nine had died, said MSF field communications manager Kate Stegeman.

The US military carried out just one air strike on the city yesterday “in order to eliminate a threat to the force,” said its spokesman Colonel Brian Tribus.

Neither the US nor Nato troops are believed to have an operational presence in the region, though the German military controls a major base in the nearby city of Mazar-i-Sharif.