Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan on Friday seized Kandahar and Herat—the country’s second and third largest cities, hours after Fox News confirmed that the U.S. military will help evacuate Americans from the embassy in Kabul.

The insurgents have taken more than a dozen provincial capitals in recent days and now control more than two-thirds of the country just weeks before the U.S. plans to withdraw its last troops.

The New York Times reported that just three major cities in the country are still under the government’s control and Taliban fighters are “well-positioned to attack Kabul.” The paper also pointed out that the capture of Kandahar is a symbolic victory for the Taliban because it is where the insurgency started back in the 1990s.

Thousands of Afghans have fled their homes amid fears the Taliban will again impose a brutal, repressive government, all but eliminating women’s rights and conducting public executions.

The plans to evacuate the Americans were briefed to President Biden earlier Thursday in order to get his approval, one official added. The military will evacuate “thousands” of American citizens and Afghan interpreters from Kabul. 

“Things are moving,” one official said.

The Taliban’s advance has attracted the attention of the United Kingdom.

Ben Wallace, the U.K. defense minister, said in an interview Friday that his forces could make a return to Afghanistan if there is a resurgence of Al Qaeda and the country becomes a hotbed for terrorism that threatens the West, a report said. 

“I’m going to leave every option open. If the Taliban have a message from last time, you start hosting Al Qaeda, you start attacking the West, or countries like that, we could come back.”

GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The Taliban have captured another three provincial capitals in southern Afghanistan, including in Helmand, the scene of some of the heaviest fighting in the past two decades, as the insurgents press a lightning offensive that is gradually encircling the capital.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas met privately with Border Patrol agents in Texas and said in leaked audio that the border crisis is “unsustainable” and “we’re going to lose” if “borders are the first line of defense.” 

“A couple of days ago I was down in Mexico, and I said look, you know, if, if our borders are the first line of defense, we’re going to lose and this is unsustainable,” Mayorkas said Thursday, according to the audio obtained by Fox News’ Bill Melugin through a Border Patrol source. “We can’t continue like this, our people in the field cant continue and our system isn’t built for it.”

Mayorkas told the agents that the current border situation “cannot continue.” He said the federal government’s system was not designed to handle such an influx of migrants as the U.S. has seen in recent months and he was “very well” aware that the sector recently came close to “breaking.” 

“It’s our responsibility to make sure that that never happens again,” he said.

HOUSE REPUBLICANS DEMAND ANSWERS FROM DHS ON ‘APPALLING’ BORDER NUMBERS AS CRISIS ESCALATES 

Mayorkas visited the Texas border and announced that agents handled more than 212,000 migrant encounters in July, marking a 13% increase from the previous month. He admitted the issue was “one of the toughest challenges we face.”

“The extent of the challenge should not be understated, but nor should our ability to meet it,” he said.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to Fox News’s request for comment if the border is not currently “breaking” in light of the July increase in migrant encounters. 

Criticism of the Biden administration’s border policies has only sharpened due to new COVID-19 variants and what critics see as a lack of attention from Vice President Kamala Harris, who was assigned to take over the migration issue in March. 

Some border agents have also seemed exasperated by the administration’s approach to the crisis.

“For those of us who have been around here long enough … we don’t need to reinvent the wheel,” one agent told Mayorkkas. “We’ve had this happen before. We know exactly how to shut it down. We need to make illegal entry illegal.”

“For those of us who have been around here long enough … we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We’ve had this happen before. We know exactly how to shut it down. We need to make illegal entry illegal.”

— Border Patrol agent

Mayorkas struck an empathetic tone with the agents and thanked them for their “heroic” efforts. He even said that he will do everything he can to get them hazard pay amid a surge in the delta variant of the virus. He told them that he requested an additional 2,000 agents in the 2023 budget and it was revealed that there is a new focus on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to prevent NTRs (notice to return) no-shows at Immigration Court. He also said the Biden administration was working hard to “keep Title 42” in place.

EMERGENCY SHELTER IN TEXAS BORDER CITY EXPANDS CAPACITY AS MORE COVID-POSITIVE MIGRANTS RELEASED

Title 42, which was put in place during the Trump administration to prevent the spread of COVID-19, allows for the expulsion of nearly all single adults and many families without being given the chance to seek asylum. Advocacy groups have been pressing on the Biden administration to do away with the ban.

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is pressing for more expulsion flights into the interior of Mexico so individuals can’t just “turn around and give it another try,” and increase criminal prosecutions of recidivists, Mayorkas said. 

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION BEGINS FLYING MIGRANTS EXPELLED VIA TITLE 42 INTO MEXICO AMID COVID FEARS

These priorities serve as political lightning rods within the Democratic Party and would be a departure from the administration’s early days when it prided itself on unraveling Trump’s hard-line immigration policies and even put a 100-day moratorium on deportations through executive order.

Mayorkas’ call for additional agents will likely rile progressives, including “Squad” U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib, who released a statement in 2020 calling Customs and Border Protection and ICE “rogue agencies that act to inflict harm on our communities and have a pattern of behavior of abuse and mismanagement of funds.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

A CBS report on Thursday said that more than 83,000 migrant parents and children — about 88% – who were processed in July were allowed to seek asylum. The report said the Biden administration has “categorically shielded children from the policy.”

Mayorkas emphasized that many of those 212,000 resulted in expulsions under Title 42 public health protections, with 95,788 Title 42 removals. He also said that 27% of those encountered had at least one prior encounter in the past 12 months.

Fox News’ Bill Melugin, Adam Shaw and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett denied an appeal from students at Indiana University to block the school’s vaccine mandate.

Barrett, who has jurisdiction over the appeals court involved in the case, denied the students request for an injunction against Indiana University’s vaccine mandate on her own without consulting other colleagues on the court and without hearing from the school. 

HHS THE LATEST AGENCY TO MANDATE COVID VACCINATIONS FOR HEALTH CARE WORKERS

Indiana University told students and employees that they are required to be vaccinated by the start of the fall term on August 23. Students who don’t comply will have their registration canceled, and employees who don’t comply will lose their jobs.

A three-judge federal appeals court panel, including two judges appointed by former President Donald Trump, was one of two lower courts to side with Indiana University and allow it to require vaccinations. The plan announced in May requires roughly 90,000 students and 40,000 employees on seven campuses to receive COVID-19 vaccinations for the fall semester.

In July, an Indiana district court judge sided with the university in declining to issue a preliminary injunction blocking the vaccine mandate. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit voted 3-0 to uphold the decision earlier this week. Two of the three appellate judges were appointed by Trump and the third by former President Ronald Reagan.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The mandate was being challenged by eight students who argued in court papers filed Friday last week that they have “a constitutional right to bodily integrity, autonomy, and of medical treatment choice in the context of a vaccination mandate.” The students asked for an injunction from the High Court barring the university from enforcing the mandate. Seven of the students qualify for a religious exemption.

The appeal’s denial represents the first time the high court has reacted to an emergency appeal specifically related to vaccine mandates, which could set a precedent for how those cases are treated in the future.

Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Wild video captured a group of irate people in Tennessee hurling threats at health care professionals and school board members after a mask mandate was reinstated – with one man threatening, “We know who you are! You can leave freely, but we will find you!”

The chaos erupted Tuesday night in Franklin, just south of Nashville, where the Williamson County Board of Education approved the mask requirement for elementary schools as protesters gathered outside, according to News Channel 5.

During the heated debate before the measure was passed, a parent who identified himself as former Marine Daniel Jordan told the board, “Actions have consequences. If you vote for this, we will come for you, in a nonviolent way,” CNN reported.

He added: “In the past, you dealt with sheep, now prepare yourself to deal with lions.”

Dr. Jennifer King, a parent and physician, told the board, “As a pediatric ICU physician, we are seeing more younger previously healthy children admitted with respiratory failure and acute respiratory distress syndrome than we have in prior strains, as cases in children are on the rise.

“This trend will only worsen if we don’t act now,” she said during the raucous meeting, where attendees cheered, clapped and booed. Police escorted some disruptive people out of the room, footage shared on Twitter shows.

PARENTS ACROSS US REVOLT AGAINST BOARDS ON MASKS, CRITICAL RACE THEORY AND GENDER ISSUES

Outside, meanwhile, irate parents chanted, “We’ll not comply!” and yelled obscenities as the health care workers streamed out of the building after the emotionally charged session, The Hill reported.

“Take that mask off!” one woman was heard yelling.

An unmasked man was seen yelling at a health care worker walking to his car, “You’re not on our side! We know who you are!”

Another man, who pointed a finger at the car, shouted, “We know who you are! You can leave freely, but we will find you!”

The man, Michael Miller, a health care data analyst, had earlier asked the school board to reinstate the mask mandate, according to News Channel 5.

“There is a place in hell for you guys! There is a bad place in hell and everybody’s taking notes, buddy,” another man yelled, video shows.

At one point, a sergeant with the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office pleaded for the crowd to be peaceful.

“We are here for everybody’s safety, we are here for y’all just as much as we are here for everybody else, OK?” he said.

“We are here, we are away from our families, some of us are on a 17-, almost an 18-hour day, and that’s me. So I’m here for y’all. I’m here for y’all. We want everything to be peaceful. I am begging y’all to be peaceful,” the sergeant added.

GEORGIA SCHOOL GO BACK TO REMOTE LEARNING FOLLOWING CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAKS, EXPOSURE

School board spokeswoman Carol Birdsong said in a statement to News Channel 5: “Our parents are passionate about their children’s education, and that’s one of the reasons for our district’s success over the years. With that said, there’s no excuse for incivility.

“We serve more than 40,000 students and employ more than 5,000 staff members. Our families and staff represent a wide variety of thoughts and beliefs, and it is important in our district that all families and staff have the opportunity to be represented and respected,” she said.

“We will continue to work toward making sure all voices are heard and that all families, staff and community members feel safe sharing their opinions,” Birdsong added after the board voted 7-3 to require masks in elementary schools for all students, staff and visitors.

The policy goes into effect Thursday and will last until at least Sept. 21.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Last week, state Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey said pediatric cases are spiking, nearly doubling from the week of July 18 to July 25, adding that hospitals started filling up in early July due to respiratory illnesses, according to the outlet.

“When you add COVID hospitalizations on top of that, that’s just enough to tip the scales sometimes,” she said.

Schools Superintendent Jason Golden recommended the board pass the mask policy since elementary-age students are not eligible to get the jab, The Tennessean reported. Masks will remain optional at middle and high schools.

Click here to read more on the New York Post.