Monday’s attack came as Taliban fighters and government forces battled for control of a strategic district in the southern province of Helmand after it was overrun by insurgents, delivering a serious blow to the government’s thinly spread and exhausted forces.
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He added: “It’s more hard because I’m also part of the four matches (in succession) that we have lost”. “More important is that my players have to perform”.
Just before midnight, U.S. warplanes conducted two strikes in the vicinity of Sangin, the spokesman for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation mission in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Col. Mike Lawhorn, said.
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The district of Sangin, located in Helmand Province, has become a flashpoint of heavy fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban.
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Government officials yesterday denied reports that Sangin was on the brink of falling to the Taleban, saying reinforcements were trying to relieve dozens of security forces holed up in the district centre.
Regaining full control would increase the Taliban’s mobility in the north of the province and cut a key supply line for Afghan forces.
Although the combat mission ended past year, around 9,800 USA troops and nearly 4,000 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces remain in Afghanistan.
Earlier, the Taliban said in a statement 150 soldiers had been killed after suicide attackers had entered the base and attacked worldwide forces and their Afghan allies. One security official said the assailants held some civilians as “human shields”, which had complicated their operation.
David Sedney, a foreign policy analyst at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C, said that the Afghan army is showing its weakness. It sits on crucial smuggling routes for drugs, arms and other contraband which fund the insurgency.
Fighting spiked this week, but, today, the provincial governor rejected Taliban claims that they’d routed the defenders.
Shadi Khan, a tribal elder in Sangin who is also director of the Sangin District Council, said he was trapped in the Sangin army base for three days before government forces arrived.
“The Taliban have made big advances in Helmand province in summer and into the winter and the offensive is increasing”, he said.
Pakistan facilitated the first round of direct peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban group in Islamabad this year but the second round of the talks scheduled in July failed with the disclosure of the death of Taliban founder and supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
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It was strategically important because it linked Lashkar Gah, the Helmand capital, to districts in the north, he said. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation headquarters in Kabul confirmed the air strikes on Wednesday had taken place but gave no details. He said that the restoration of the peace process was not only on the interest of Afghanistan, but was equally beneficial of the entire region.
