Pakistan army chief to visit Kabul to discuss Taliban talks

The US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation mission in Afghanistan formally ended its 13-year International Security Assistance Force combat operations on December 31, 2014.

In a separate incident in neighbouring Helmand province, where the Taliban has been increasing pressure for weeks, insurgents captured the district of Khanishin, a major control point for drug smuggling routes through the south. Fourteen policemen were killed and 11others wounded, provincial council chief Karim Atal said.

However, Helmand’s deputy governor, Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar, denied the claim.

The deeper US involvement bolsters Taliban propaganda that they are fighting a foreign occupier.

“Taliban rumors that they have captured the district are not true”, he said.

“The military planes have dropped food and supplies to the Afghan forces on ground”.

In Washington, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the nation’s thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families and their loved ones, and that the USA will continue to work jointly with Afghans to promote peace and stability in their country.

“In total the United Kingdom has around 450 troops in Afghanistan mentoring and supporting the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces and the Afghan Security Ministries”.

Almost a quarter of all British troops who died in Afghanistan were killed in the town.

The Taliban statement regarding the British troops deployment said that before entering Afghanistan “they should have studied the history of their ancestors and should have learned a lesson from the repeated defeat”. “We are still strong”.

He said plans to push back in Sangin had been in preparation for some time, but the government had to prioritize its military assets as the Taliban had been fighting across all corners of the country since the drawdown of the global combat mission previous year.

“They [Taliban] put a lot of fighters a lot of weapons in Helmand province that is right in the border with Pakistan and most of the fighters and weapons come across the border, there is nothing that stops them”. Palpably enough, the military is in crisis in Helmand and this has piled pressure on the government of President Ashraf Ghani, which was rocked by the fall of the northern city of Kunduz, seized by Taliban fighters in late September and held for several days. On Aug. 22, three American contractors with the RS base were killed in a suicide attack in Kabul. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

Responding to doubtful remarks made by an Afghan representative about Pakistan’s commitment to the peace process in Afghanistan, Munir added “no one should place aspersions on Pakistan’s sincerity”.

President Barack Obama in October announced that thousands of U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan past 2016, backpedalling on previous plans to reduce the force and acknowledging that Afghan forces are not ready to stand alone.