Home Latest News Clashes as Taliban Advance in Helmand Province

Clashes as Taliban Advance in Helmand Province

by AFP
Noor Mohammad—AFP

Noor Mohammad—AFP

Officials claim the militants have already captured key government buildings in Sangin district.

Clashes intensified Monday as the Taliban pressed an offensive to capture a key district in Helmand’s opium-growing heartland, a day after an official warned the entire southern Afghan province was on the brink of collapse.

Local residents reported crippling food shortages in Sangin district after the Taliban began storming government buildings on Sunday. “The Taliban have captured the police headquarters, the governor’s office as well as the intelligence agency building in Sangin,” said deputy Helmand governor Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar. “Fighting is escalating in the district.”

Rasoolyar’s comments come a day after he posted a desperate plea on Facebook to President Ashraf Ghani, warning the entire province was at risk of falling to the Taliban. The grim assessment bore striking similarities to the security situation that led to the brief fall of Kunduz in September—the biggest Taliban victory in 14 years of war.

The fall of Helmand would deal another stinging blow to Afghan forces who have struggled to rein in the ascendant insurgency after the U.S.-led NATO combat mission ended a year ago. The government in Kabul said reinforcements had been dispatched to Sangin, while strongly denying that the district was at risk of being captured.

But trapped residents told AFP that roads to Sangin had been heavily mined by insurgents and exhausted soldiers besieged in government buildings were begging for food rations. All but two of Helmand’s 14 districts are effectively controlled or heavily contested by Taliban insurgents, officials said.

Insurgents also recently overran Babaji, a suburb of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, fuelling concern that the city could fall to the insurgents.

Highlighting the gravity of the situation, U.S. special forces have been sent to Helmand in recent weeks to assist Afghan forces, a senior Western official told AFP without offering details.

Sangin, a strategically important district at the center of Afghanistan’s lucrative opium trade, has been the scene of fierce fighting for years between the Taliban and NATO forces. British troops fought deadly battles in Sangin for four years to little effect, before U.S. marines replaced them in late 2010 and finally pulled out themselves last year.

“The Taliban onslaught in Sangin is not just a military gain but also a huge propaganda score for the insurgents,” said Kabul-based political analyst Haroon Mir. “The British and Americans bled to defend Sangin district and now Afghan forces are suffering the same fate.”

This month marks a year since the U.S.-led NATO mission in Afghanistan transitioned into an Afghan-led operation, with allied nations assisting in training local forces.

President Barack Obama in October announced that thousands of U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan past 2016, backpedalling on previous plans to shrink the force and acknowledging that Afghan forces are not ready to stand alone. Ghani has been pushing to jump-start peace talks with the Taliban, which stalled after the insurgents belatedly confirmed longtime leader Mullah Omar’s death earlier this year.

Related Articles

1 comment

Abdul Rauf Khan December 22, 2015 - 8:07 am

The poor administrative set up,unawareness of the social ethics and rampant corruption has taken Afghanistan to the verge of collapse like Vietnam.
Americans put the other nations at stake for their adventurism and sowing seed of unstability around their foreign based expolted land.Americans have proved to be untrusted in their outlook.
What their thinker tanks strategy to make this great nation working towards stability and the venruring vampire!!

Reply

Leave a Reply to Abdul Rauf Khan Cancel Reply