Iraqi forces started an attack on Tuesday to dislodge Islamic State militants from the center of Ramadi, the last district under their control in the city they had captured in May.
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Many local people in Sangin are resentful of the Afghan government troops, whose military operations destroyed homes and farms.
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The group declared a caliphate over the Iraqi and adjacent Syrian Sunni-populated territory it controls.
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Army commanders said on Wednesday that the battle for Ramadi would take several days.
The district of Sangin, located in Helmand Province, has become a flashpoint of heavy fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban.
MASOOM STANEKZAI, Acting Defense Minister, Afghanistan: When the USA and the British forces were there, how many enablers they had, how many jets they had, how many helicopters they had, and how many we have today? Whether this means little more than what it does on paper remains to be seen, as the Taliban has become increasingly factionalised after the death of leader Mullah Omar, with the faction led by Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour being rejected by other factions within the group.
All but two of Helmand’s 14 districts are effectively controlled or heavily contested by the Taliban, who also recently came close to overrunning the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah. He told reporters the Afghan air force had conducted 160 combat and transport flights over Sangin in the past 48 hours.
The Taliban statement listed barriers to peace negotiations, including United Nations sanctions on individual Taliban figures which were extended this week, and the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan, with specific mention of the British troops that arrived in Helmand on Wednesday to provide support for Afghan forces battling in Sangin.
The security forces remain plagued by poor logistics and unknown numbers of “ghost soldiers” – troops who exist only on paper so military officers can collect their salaries, Ruttig said.
The Afghan forces had some support from the U.S., the spokesman for NATO’s Operation Resolute Support told CNN on Thurs.
Fleeing residents reported that the Taliban were executing captured soldiers as the insurgents advanced on the district centre, compounding fears that the entire province was on the brink of falling into insurgent hands.
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He said plans to push back in Sangin had been in preparation for some time, but the government had to prioritize its military assets as the Taliban had been fighting across all corners of the country since the drawdown of the worldwide combat mission a year ago. “They get more mobile, they have their own air power, they have their own intelligence, they have their own command and control”. Then, in May of 2014, he said virtually all American forces would be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2016.
