Insurgents have been fighting for control of Sangin for nearly a month, though the battle intensified a week ago as government reinforcements failed to arrive and Afghan security forces were pinned down inside an army base.
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Speaking to reporters in Kabul, he also appealed for global military help, especially air support. The town is an important poppy-growing area and sits on lucrative transport routes for drugs and weapons.
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A police source told the ABC that the Merrylands home of Salihy raided this morning was also raided earlier this month. Police say their investigation disrupted the terror plot.
This week North Atlantic Treaty Organisation military advisers have been sent to Helmand, but no foreign troops will participate in combat operations on the ground.
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The three-decade conflict between Turkish security forces and the PKK rebels have claimed the lives of more than 30,000 people. Turkey and Russia have been at odds since Ankara downed a Russian jet last month saying it violated its airspace.
Helmand’s deputy governor, Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar, told Al Jazeera that government forces are “fighting to push back the Taliban”, and that “parts of Sangin are under Taliban control, but not the police and military installations”.
Supply lines were cut, preventing ammunition and food from reaching government forces, and mines were placed near roads around the district center, officials have said.
Afghan government forces had been “thinly spread” over the whole country, he said, and had been trying their best to hold all areas.
The interior ministry said the Afghan army and police commandos launched an operation late on Wednesday, leading to the deaths of the Taliban commander and his fighters.
(Vatican Radio) Reports characterized as “grim” and “desperate” are being used in reference to a Taliban takeover of the Sangin district of Afghanistan.
Its loss by Afghan forces, left alone since global forces ended combat operations past year, would raise major questions for Western governments over the strategic direction of the war and the billions of dollars in aid provided to Kabul.
A Taliban claim that it had the district under its control was widely denied.
Russian Federation has opposed the Taliban for more than a decade as a potential vehicle for terror and instability. Similar to the Islamic State, the Taliban are known for staging brutal public executions and imposing an extreme interpretation of Islamic law on the territories they have captured.
A female Air Force officer who was one of the first openly gay US service members to get married was identified on Tuesday as one of the six USA troops killed by a suicide bomber near Bagram air base in Afghanistan.
Nearly a quarter of United Kingdom casualties in Afghanistan took place fighting the Taliban in Sangin.
There were many wounded at the barracks needing urgent evacuation, he said.
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He served in the Newburgh, New York-based 105th Airlift Wing with Staff Sergeant Louis Bonacasa, 31, who also died in the attack, the Air National Guard said. There has been “no travel, no meetings”. News storiesdisplayed here appear in our category for global and are licensed via a specific agreement between LongIsland.comand The Associated Press, the world’s oldest and largest news organization.
