Reeling on the battlefield, Afghan government officials face the difficult question of whether to let captured cities go in order to hold what they still have.
Author: Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Najim Rahim and Sharif Hassan
Another provincial capital, Taliqan, falls to the insurgents on Sunday.
The Taliban seize a third regional capital in just one day, tightening their hold on a vast swath of northern Afghanistan.