Afghan minister: Reinforcements rushed to southern district under Taliban attack

United Kingdom advisers were flown in over the weekend to help train struggling Afghan forces failing to halt Taliban advances across the province.

It saw the heaviest British losses as more than 100 troops were killed in the decade-long battle to secure the Helmand province district.

Stanekzai pleaded for patience, saying Afghan forces were fighting without the extensive array of tactical “enablers” from close air support and helicopters to surveillance assets that North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops had used when they were involved.

Responding to the defence minister’s claims, he said: “Those whose family – brothers and siblings and parents – are not fighting on the front, they always say the situation is not unsafe in the area…”

The war in Helmand, seen as the epicentre of the expanding insurgency, underscores worsening security in Afghanistan a year after North Atlantic Treaty Organisation formally ended its combat operations. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Taliban, said: “The British troops can not do anything”.

Fighting around the town has escalated in the past week, and by Wednesday the militants said they had captured all of Sangin, pinning down government troops in an army barracks.

Shadi Khan, a tribal elder in Sangin who is also director of the Sangin District Council, said he was trapped in the base for three days before government forces arrived.

The Sangin District is a key center of the Afghan opium trade, and hugely profitable for the Taliban because of that. The head of Helmand’s provincial council, Muhammad Kareem Atal, said about 65 percent of Helmand is now under Taliban control.

Two Afghan national army tanks had been hit by improvised explosive devices and another had been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, and so had turned back, Shah said.

However, these troops are not deployed for combat as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. This small contingent of the British forces was positioned at Camp Shorabak, on the site of Camp Bastion, which is a former British Army headquarters in Afghanistan, the British Defense Ministry reported.

With intense fighting continuing, Afghan forces were unable to take care of their deceased comrades.

He said the main reason for the delay in sending reinforcements to the area was because of its remoteness and, during the summer months, the punishing climate. “These personnel are part of a larger North Atlantic Treaty Organisation team which is providing advice to the Afghan National Army”, an MoD spokeswoman said.

The Afghan forces staged the counterattack Wednesday evening, while the USA carried out air strikes, the BBC News says.

Her father, Joseph Vorderbruggen (VOHR’-dur-BROO’-gun), told The Associated Press his daughter “loved life” and “loved the military”. “It is a confidence thing”.

Alongside the 9,800 US troops and some 4,000 from other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation members. “When the British and US forces were there, how many enablers did they have?”