Taliban attacks on a district in the southern province of Helmand province killed at least 24 police officers over the past two days, an Afghan official said on Sunday. It has been persistently under attack from the Taliban, prompting the United States military to deploy soldiers to the restive region to assist and advise Afghan forces.
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Earlier several other districts too came in control of the Taliban that includes Marjah, Garmser, Sangin and Dishu.
The attacks follow a recent report by Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, that highlights that 5 percent of government-controlled territories have been lost to the Taliban forces.
A delegation from the Taliban visited China earlier this month to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, where the insurgent movement is fighting the Western-backed government in Kabul, sources in the Taliban said.
The fall of the district, which borders Pakistan and major poppy-producing districts, means “Taliban are in control of 60 percent of Helmand”, Akhonzada said. These checkpoints which are now scattered, poorly armed and vulnerable to attack are in need of consolidation, but residents seem to feel safe with the former arrangement.
It said that of Afghanistan’s 407 districts, 268 were under government control of influence, 36 or 8.8 percent were under insurgent control or influence, and 104 or 25.6 percent were considered “at risk”. The group also considers Helmand to be their heartland and something that is worth fighting for.
That attack was claimed by the Islamic State group, its first in the Afghan capital and the biggest in Kabul since the Taliban launched their insurgency in 2001.
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Zwak added that one police personnel was killed and five others including Khanashin district police chief Abdul Rauf were injured in the conflict. He said they had inflicted heavy casualties of security forces and seized weapons and ammunition from them.
