US, UK deploy military as Taliban takes Sangin

Police Commissioner William Bratton said on Monday, Dec. 21, 2015, that Lemm is one of six American troops killed in a sui… Detective Lemm was a fifteen year veteran of the NYPD and was promoted to Detective in January of 2014, serving in the Bronx Warrant Squad.

The commander of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Gen. John F. Campbell said recently that the Afghan forces were still challenged by practical issues such as logistics, as well as lagging confidence.

Lemm – a resident of West Harrison, New York, assigned the 105th Security Forces Squadron, which is a part of the 105th Airlift Wing at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh – leaves behind his wife and two children.

Mr. Attal said the Taliban leadership, based in Pakistan, decided six months ago to seize Helmand and base more of the insurgent command there.

But Mr Rasulyar had told AFP news agency: “The Taliban have captured the police headquarters, the governor’s office as well as the intelligence agency building in Sangin”.

As a fresh offensive was launched today by Iraqi armed forces – believed to be supported by RAF air strikes – to drive IS out of the key city of Ramadi, the peer said that “ringing our hands” will not defuse the Islamist threat. The fighting there has claimed many casualties among the Afghan and worldwide forces.

Afghan soldiers prepare to battle Taliban militants in the Nad Ali district of Helmand on December 2 …

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousaf said the siege continued “and the government will soon announce their defeat”.

“We are still learning all of the details, but two other service members and a USA contractor were also injured”.

Combat operations by the U.K in Afghanistan officially ended previous year but Britain decided not to withdraw its soldiers in order to bolster the country’s security forces fighting the Taliban.

In Kabul, Abdullah Abdullah, chief executive of the National Unity Government with President Ashraf Ghani, pledged “immediate action” after a meeting with security ministers.

A Taliban suicide attacker killed six American troops on a joint NATO-Afghan patrol on Monday.

Helmand is an important Taliban base as it produces most of the world’s opium, a crop that helps fund the insurgency.

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.

A U.S. Department of Defense report released last week said the Afghan forces have “uneven” capacity to hold territory they clear and “remain in a primarily defensive posture that limits their agility across the country”. His deputy, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, succeeded him, causing internal ructions and delaying the likelihood that a peace dialogue with the Afghan government, halted after the announcement of Mullah Omar’s death, will restart in the foreseeable future.

The county’s stability has been deteriorating at an alarming rate as national armed forces struggle to counter the Taliban following Nato’s withdrawal past year.