Air strikes hit targets in embattled Afghan district

The US army conducted the air strikes on Wednesday to support Afghan forces mobilising reinforcements to relieve dozens of security forces holed up in the district centre.

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation military advisers have been sent to Helmand, with an extra British contingent arriving this week, but officials say they have a purely advisory role and they have not confirmed reports that special forces units are present.

“An hour later we recaptured that building and now we have it”, he told The Associated Press.

The UK Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday that British troops had been deployed to the province to support local forces after the Afghan Defence Minister called for a desperate global support and air cover.

Helmand is a traditional stronghold of the Taliban and a major centre for opium that USA and British troops fought for years to control.

Regaining full control would increase the Taliban’s mobility in the north of the province and cut a key supply line for Afghan forces.

Fighting spiked this week, but, today, the provincial governor rejected Taliban claims that they’d routed the defenders.

As the military rushed more troops to the area, Afghan officials on Wednesday asked for the worldwide military coalition’s help, including airstrikes.

Fighting between Afghan soldiers and the Taliban has been particularly heavy around the town of Sangin, which is under Taliban control.

“Generally, the government, and the parliament, judicial power, we all are working together unitedly, unanimously towards the peace talks and peace process”, said Khalid Pashtoon, member, Afghan National Assembly. Afghan army convoys rolled north toward Sangin district, as police searched cars and people on a main road.

The Taliban on Thursday issued a statement laying out conditions for talks to end the war, now in its fourteenth year. Talk of a dialogue between the Kabul government and the insurgents has resurfaced following a regional conference in the Pakistani capital earlier this month where hopes were raised that a process that was cancelled over the summer could be revived in 2016.

The commander killed within the offensive is taken in to account to be an in depth confidant of the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, officers stated. It also led to deep fissures in the group’s leadership, further muddying the waters about just who the Afghan government should be talking to when the time comes.

Meanwhile, the presence of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces in Afghanistan poses another obstacle. He said that the restoration of the peace process was not only on the interest of Afghanistan, but was equally beneficial of the entire region.