Afghan forces battle Taliban surge with help from USA airstrikes

Afghan army sergeant Abdul Samad said that their forces have been fighting the insurgents with a high moral in the Helmand area and revealed that the Talibans are unable to confront the forces, citing it to be optimistic.

Afghan officials say they have retaken key buildings in a counter-attack, and the US has carried out air strikes.

In order to support the local forces, the UK Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday that British troops had been sent to the province after the Afghan Defense Minister requested worldwide support and air cover.

The announcement in July that the Taliban founder and leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had been dead for more than two years saw the group pull out of a dialogue process after only one meeting in Pakistan between representatives of each side.

Government officials today denied reports that Sangin was on the brink of falling to the Taliban, saying that reinforcements were trying to relieve dozens of security forces holed up in the district centre. The Taliban already held three Helmand districts as well as large parts of the rest of the province outside the main centres and control strategic roads, making it hard to reinforce and resupply security force units cut off by their advance.

Afghan police keep watch during an ongoing battle with Taliban militants in the Marjah district of Helmand Province, on December 23, 2015. As the US Special Representative for Afghanistan, Richard Olson, acknowledged while testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the other day, “Pakistan recognises the fact that to defeat the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the country needs to take on the Afghan Taliban”.

The most recent battle on Friday morning was taking place around the town’s central bazaar, said Al Jazeera’s Qais Azimy, reporting from the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.

Zabiullah Mujahid, who is the Taliban spokesperson, said on Wednesday, fighters for the movement had raised their flags since they had seized the entire district, the police and military installations.

The Afghan forces had some support from the United States, the spokesman for NATO’s Operation Resolute Support told CNN on Thursday. They were deployed to Camp Shorabak, on the site of Camp Bastion, the former British Army headquarters in Afghanistan, the ministry said.

He warned that all of Helmand could fall to the Taliban if the President didn’t take action. 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.

The unrest in Helmand, blighted by a huge opium harvest that helps fund the insurgency, comes after the Taliban briefly captured Kunduz city in September – their biggest victory in 14 years of war.