Afghan forces ‘kill Taliban fighters’

Afghan forces have started receiving finally in the town of Sangin in Helmand province as intense fight continues against Taliban attackers who said to have taken over major portions of the town.

By mid-afternoon Wednesday, the Taliban spokesman for southern Afghanistan, Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, tweeted that “Sangin district has completely collapsed to the Taliban” and that insurgents have captured Afghan soldiers and ammunition.

Ian Wright, whose son Gary was killed when his vehicle was caught in a suicide blast in Lashkar Gah in 2006, said: “I am totally opposed to troops back on the ground in Afghanistan, whatever roles they are carrying out”.

General Abdul Wodud, a senior army commander, said a joint Afghan and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation operation backed by air support had driven the Taliban back from central areas, killing 60 Taliban fighters and wounding 40.

Defence Minister Masoom Stanekzai said: “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”.

Kabul said reinforcements had been rushed to the town and fighting was continuing.

Taliban fighters have finally captured the centre of a Helmand town where 106 British soldiers lost their lives in four years of fighting.

Rasolyaar mentioned Sangin district in his message, saying its main bazaar and the government office were under heavy attack by the Taliban. And the U.S. spent over $65 billion training the Afghan security forces so that western troops could take a backseat in the fighting.

The Taliban have already seized control of all but two districts in Helmand.

Stuart Gordon, a Helmand expert at the Chatham House think tank, told Britain’s Press Association news agency that Sangin held a special significance to the British as more than 100 British troops had been killed there.

The British and USA intervention has fuelled the perception that foreign powers are increasingly being drawn back into the conflict as Afghan forces struggle to rein in the Taliban.

But he did not comment on the situation in Sangin as claimed by the government.

In September, the Taliban briefly overran the northern Afghan city of Kunduz in one of their biggest victories since 2001.

President Barack Obama in October announced that thousands of United States troops would remain in Afghanistan past 2016, acknowledging that Afghan forces are not ready to stand alone.

Widespread reports of mass desertions, leadership confusion and bitter complaints from the frontline about units being left for months without reinforcements or adequate supplies have underlined the problems facing Afghan commanders.