Afghan forces plan military move against Taliban

The Taliban, who already control nearly all of Sangin district, said on Wednesday that they had captured police and administrative buildings in the district center, where small groups of police had been holding out.

However government officials have denied the claim and said they have pushed back Taliban insurgents seeking to re-establish their hard-line Islamist regime after being toppled by US-led military intervention in 2001.

“Afghan army commandoes and police forces have launched an operation in Sangin”, said interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi, claiming heavy Taleban losses.

Reinforcements arrived Wednesday afternoon after being rushed to the region, the acting Defense Minister Masoom Stanekzai told reporters on Wednesday.

Ahead of his visit to Islamabad for the Heart of Asia conference, President Ghani said negotiations with Pakistan would be more effective than sitting-in for peace talks with the Taliban group.

The turmoil in Helmand, the deadliest province for British and United States forces in Afghanistan over the past decade, underscores a rapidly unravelling security situation in Afghanistan.

Taliban claim to have captured almost the entire district of Sangin after storming its frontlines last Sunday, tightening their grip on the southern Helmand province.

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 worldwide support and air cover. He said the entire province was in danger of falling to the Taliban.

He conceded that many important districts in Helmand had been under prolonged Taliban attack, including Khanshin on the Pakistan border and Marjah, and that the provincial capital Lashkar Gah had also been targeted by the insurgents.

The fighting in Helmand, seen as the centre of the expanding insurgency, follows a string of military victories for the Taliban after North Atlantic Treaty Organisation formally ended its combat operations last December.

Helmand-based civil society activist Sardar Mohammad Hamdard said that at least 200 civilians had been killed or wounded in Sangin in the recent fighting. The Taliban on Wednesday slammed the British deployment after last year’s pullout as “a sign of stupidity” and threatened to target the “newly arrived invaders”. Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who was Mullah Omar’s deputy and took his place in August, has been locked in an increasingly violent dispute over the legitimacy of his position.

“It was significant because of the routes it controlled and it was a very significant part of the resourcing of the political economy of Helmand, because it is a major center of drugs processing and drugs shipping”, said Gordon.