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Afghan authorities deny Sangin is under Taliban control
The enemy never took control of Sangin district.
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Army officials in Afghanistan say 21 soldiers have been killed by the Taliban in Helmand province during the last 48 hours.
Associated Press reported Afghan forces alongside US air strikes pushed back a Taliban offensive on Thursday in a strategically important district located in the southern Afghan province of Helmand.
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.
“As the fighting continues here we are not able to do farming. Parts of Sangin are under the Taliban control but not the police and military installations”, he said.
As Major Richard Streatfield, a British officer who fought at Sangin, told the BBC: “I won’t deny, on a personal level, it does make you wonder – was it worth it?” During the recent intense fighting in Sangin and Greshk districts, 90 Afghan security forces had been killed, he said.
Sangin has seen more than 100 British troops losing their lives during the decade long combat mission in Afghanistan.
When NATO troops pulled out of Helmand in October previous year, hopes were expressed that Afghan forces that moved into the two huge bases left behind by American and British soldiers would be able to take on the Taliban alone. Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorists could have been dealt with without invading an entire country, and there was never any evidence that the Taliban government of the day knew about his 9/11 attacks on the United States in advance.
“They were defeated even after the presence of thousands of troops and the same will happen with these few hundred troops, this means nothing else but a shameful humiliation for them”.
The Taliban issued a statement Thursday laying out conditions for a peace dialogue to end the war, now in its 14th year.
The troops, the British Ministry of Defence said in a statement, were “part of the UK’s ongoing contribution to NATO’s Resolute Support Mission”, the training, advisory, assistance and counterterror mission in Afghanistan.
Political analyst Waheed Muzhda, formerly an official in the Taliban’s 1996-2001 administration, said the Taliban needed to sort out its leadership problems before it started talking about the peace process.
According to reports, a spokesman said Helmand is not only the province where Taliban have made gains.
“They [Taliban] put a lot of fighters a lot of weapons in Helmand province that is right in the border with Pakistan and most of the fighters and weapons come across the border, there is nothing that stops them”.
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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.