The Taliban spokesman for southern Afghanistan, Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, claimed on Twitter that “Sangin district has completely collapsed to the Taliban” and that they had captured Afghan soldiers and ammunition.
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Regardless of its origins, NORAD Tracks Santa grew from there into something that kids have looked forward to for generations. Instead of listing the number for Sears’ Santa hotline, it posted the number for the Continental Air Defense Command center.
A Taliban claim that it had the district under its control was widely denied.
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Mohammad says he and most residents of Sangin fled to the Helmand provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, when the fighting escalated. The ministry named the dead commander as Mullah Nasir, a confidant of Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour.
The loss of Sangin would be a significant blow for the government in Kabul because it is central to the opium trade and was a stranglehold for the insurgents.
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Military advisers from Britain have joined other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation advisers in Helmand to help Afghan forces who have struggled to contain the insurgency since foreign troops withdrew from combat operations a year ago.
Sangin residents have been fleeing as the fighting worsened.
Though the militants control the vast majority of the district, located in northern Helmand province, the main security buildings in Sangin are under government control, several sources told the Guardian on Wednesday afternoon.
Maj. Adrianna Vorderbruggen, 36, was part of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, and died after a motorcyclist strapped with explosives drove into her security patrol near Bagram Air Base.
The British troops, which were actually deployed for the training, advisory, assistance and counter- terror mission in Afghanistan, have provided help.
The Taliban say they were behind the deadly attack.
The Taliban surge in Sangin has seen British troops pulled back into the conflict more than a year after the last of the armed forces left the country.
Hundreds of Afghan security forces have been killed fighting the Taliban across the province in the past six months, Helmand’s deputy governor Mohammad Jan Rasulyar said. The militants were also reported to have overrun the district governor’s compound. “These personnel are part of a larger North Atlantic Treaty Organisation team which is providing advice to the Afghan National Army”, an MoD spokeswoman said.
“Sangin became fairly totemic for the British because of the number of soldiers lost”, he said.
Political analyst Haroun Mir said such incidents were an indication of “how remote the political elite have become from the reality on the ground”, obsessed with infighting and intrigue rather than fixing the country’s problems.
He was assigned to the 105th Security Forces Squadron at Stewart Air National Guard Base, New York.
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An Air Force major from Plymouth was one of seven service members killed by a suicide bomber Monday in Afghanistan, according to the Department of Defense.
