Afghan Reinforcements Sent as Taliban Seizes Sangin District

Fighting continues across Afghanistan’s Helmand province as Taliban forces overrun the town of Sangin.

Stanikzai further added that additional forces have been deployed in the area of repulse the Taliban offensive and the Afghan forces are receiving air support which has considerably reduced the casualties of the security forces.

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation officials say the troops sent to Helmand are not taking a direct part in combat and they have not confirmed reports that special forces were among the advisers.

The British troops, which were actually deployed for the training, advisory, assistance and counter- terror mission in Afghanistan, have provided help. They “had to fight alongside the bodies of their friends and the wounded soldiers”, said Ali Shah Khan, a tribal elder from Sangin.

“The Helmand battle is not easy because the province has a long border, is a core of opium production, and our enemies are well-equipped and deeply involved in the smuggling of drugs”, he said.

“U.S. forces conducted two strikes in Sangin district, Helmand Province, December 23, against threats to the force”, U.S. Army Colonel Michael Lawhorn said.

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…”

Taliban fighters have finally captured the centre of a Helmand town where 106 British soldiers lost their lives in four years of fighting. The head of Helmand’s provincial council, Muhammad Kareem Atal, said about 65 percent of Helmand is now under Taliban control.

The interior ministry also said that security forces had killed a senior Taliban commander it identified as Mullah Nasir.

A spokesman for the insurgents claimed the entire Sangin district – once held by British forces – had “completely collapsed” to them.

“It is both the government and the Taliban who are doing the killing”, Hamdard said.

In addition to the airstrikes, Afghan officials conducted air drops of food and ammunition for government forces and civilians on the ground in Sangin.

A senior Taliban commander was among 60 militants killed in the battle for Sangin, it has been reported.

The Taliban surge in Sangin has seen British troops pulled back into the conflict more than a year after the last of the armed forces left the country.

A police officer with an Afghan army brigade said: “Support troops have been airdropped at a distance but all roads are blocked and in the militants’ control”.

A Taliban statement said that before “interfering” in Afghanistan, Britain should have ‘studied their ancestor’s history, to learn from it. If they learned lessons from their repeated defeats in Afghanistan, they wouldn’t come to invade us.

“Rumours about Lashkar Gah (falling to the Taliban) are totally baseless because we don’t have fear of losing the districts, so there is no fear of losing the centre”, Abdullah said.