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Afghanistan: Sangin nearly entirely in Taliban hands
The Taliban already hold three Helmand districts as well as large parts of the rest of the province outside the main centres and control key strategic roads, making it hard to reinforce and resupply security force units cut off by their advance.
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An Afghan soldier stops traffic at a checkpoint in Helmand province Tuesday as a new deployment of British troops rushed to p… A spokesperson for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation mission in Afghanistan confirmed that USA planes had conducted to airstrikes overnight.
It was in December a year ago that North Atlantic Treaty Organisation handed over the security operations in Sangin to the Afghans. “There is fighting here every day and whenever people come to the bazaar for shopping they get killed”, said shopkeeper Musa Khan, in Marjah district, near the provincial capital Lashkar Gah. Anytime, he issued a warning that all of Helmand could fall to the Taliban, if the President will not take action.
The intervention has fuelled the perception that foreign forces are increasingly being drawn back into the conflict as NATO-trained Afghan forces struggle to rein in the Taliban.
Afghan defence ministry said fighting was continuing and that reinforcements had been sent. “They are not deployed in a combat role and will not deploy outside the camp”, the statement said.
Helmand is a strategically-important province with major supply routes for the opium trade and its proximity to Pakistan.
All but two of Helmand’s 14 districts are effectively controlled or heavily contested by Taliban insurgents.
(Vatican Radio) Reports characterized as “grim” and “desperate” are being used in reference to a Taliban takeover of the Sangin district of Afghanistan.
Helmand-based civil society activist Sardar Mohammad Hamdard said that at least 200 civilians had been killed or wounded in Sangin in the recent fighting.
The US conducted the two strikes in the vicinity of Sangin, after Afghanistan’s government called for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation help to defeat the Taliban fighters.
But the loss of Sangin, which British and US forces fought for years to control, would also be a heavy blow for Western powers backing the Kabul government, now fighting alone since global forces ended combat operations last year.
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. Last weekend, the deputy governor of the province pleaded publicly with President Ashraf Ghani for military aid, writing in a Facebook post that his province was “standing on the brink”.
Lord Dannatt, former chief of the general staff, said the Government must think “long and hard” about any expansion of the UK’s role as it balances other military demands while operating with a smaller Army.
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“We need help, we can’t hold them for much longer”, Zamarai said, his voice cracking. However, district governor Asif Nang rejected the claim as “baseless”.