Britain Sends Troops to Helmand as the Taliban Closes In

The Afghanistan government has suffered a major blow after a Taliban offensive took control of much of Sangin, the Helmand town that became symbolic for British forces, accounting for a third of their casualties reports The Guardian.

An MoD spokeswoman said: “As part of the UK’s ongoing contribution to Nato’s Resolute Support Mission, a small number of United Kingdom personnel have deployed to Camp Shorabak in Helmand province in an advisory role”.

The Taliban said they controlled most of the town and the main administrative building had been abandoned. An Afghan official says that a suicide bomber killed several foreign troops Monday in an attack on a joint Afghan-NATO foot patrol. Insecurity and Taliban control of parts of the province helped strengthen the insurgents and contributed to the production of poppy.

But spokesmen for the Afghan defense and interior ministries asserted Monday that Sangin had not fallen to the Islamist militants, although they acknowledged that fighting was taking place in many areas of Helmand.

The Pentagon released a report last week warning that the security situation in Afghanistan would deteriorate as a “resilient Taliban-led insurgency remains an enduring threat to US, coalition, and Afghan forces, as well as to the Afghan people”. It has been calculated that of the 450 British troops killed during the campaign in the country, more than 100 died in Sangin.

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in statement called the attack “a painful reminder of the dangers our troops face every day in Afghanistan”.

Soldiers are being mobilised to help North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Afghan forces as the Taliban continue to advance, overrunning the key town of Sangin.

Mir compared Helmand to Kunduz, the northern Afghan city that the Taliban took over and held for three days in September, sending shockwaves across a country that had come to believe the insurgents were not strong enough to take urban areas.

In addition to the conflict in Sangin, heavy fighting has continued in the districts of Khan Neshin, falling back and forth between insurgent and government forces in recent weeks, as well as in Marja, Gereshk and Washir.

Now, people are starting to believe the Taliban are indeed stronger than the government. During the fighting, a mistaken USA airstrike on a hospital there, which killed numerous patients and staff, added to a sense of chaos and poor coordination between Afghan troops and their US military backers trying to drive out the Islamist fighters. “It is a confidence thing”.

In the east, a Taliban attack near Bagram on Monday killed six U.S. soldiers.

U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan P. Michael McKinley issued a statement of condolences Tuesday to the families of the dead “as they face such heartbreaking news during the holiday season”.

“If they draw down any more it would just kill
morale in Afghanistan -
Afghan security forces would not be able to cope, and it would all fall apart”, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow and security and intelligence expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

In New York, Police Commissioner William Bratton said Monday that a police detective, Joseph Lemm, was one of the six Americans killed in the attack.