Family IDs 2nd NY soldier killed in Afghan attack

In a tweet, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility and said 19 US soldiers had been killed and a number wounded.

“As I saw firsthand during my visit to Afghanistan last Friday, our troops are working diligently alongside our Afghan partners to build a brighter future for the Afghan people”, Carter said in a statement.

The Taliban took over the entire district except for the police chief’s compound and another compound, where a battalion of the Afghan National Army is based, a police official said.

A NY police veteran and National Guardsman, Lemm hadn’t seen his daughter Brook, then 14, son Ryan, then 2, or his wife Christine in almost a year, CNN affiliate News12 reported.

Police Commissioner William Bratton said on Monday, Dec. 21, 2015, that Lemm is one of six American troops killed in a suicide attack near Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. “Fighting is escalating in the district”, he said.

A resident who fled Sangin told AFP that insurgents had publicly executed at least three security officials after storming government buildings. This has stretched government resources thin, as the traditional winter lull in fighting has so far failed to take place in the warmer, southern provinces. It has ramped up its attacks this year, inflicting heavier casualties on Afghan security forces.

Pakistan hosted a first round of negotiations in July but the talks stalled when the Taliban belatedly confirmed the death of longtime leader Mullah Omar. A local freelance journalist, Bilal Sarwary, tweeted that the town had been overrun apart from the police headquarters and governor’s office and that the Taliban had announced a ceasefire while calling for the Afghan forces to surrender.

Important districts across Helmand province, including Nad Ali, Kajaki, Musa Qala, Naw Zad, Gereshk and Garmser, have all been threatened by Taliban takeover in recent months.

Omar Hamid, head of Asia-Pacific country risk at IHS, told CNN that in Sangin, and before that in Kunduz, the Afghan government forces struggled to put up a fight against the Taliban without foreign backup.

Military planes dropped food and ammunition to besieged Afghan forces in Sangin after Taliban insurgents captured large swathes of the opium-growing southern district.

A spokesperson for the MoD 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 war has intensified since the announcement in late July that the founder and leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had been dead for more than two years.

“If Sangin falls, much of the north of Helmand is very much under Taliban control”, he said.

“In complete Britain has round 450 troops in Afghanistan mentoring and supporting the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces and the Afghan Security Ministries”, the assertion added.