Afghan Policeman Opens Fire on Colleagues, Kills 4

Afghan police say four officers were killed and seven others wounded when a colleague opened fire on them in the southern province of Kandahar. “It’s part of what matters most right now or the future of the country”.

The Helmand opium fields are also among the most productive in the world, making the province an economic prize disputed by the insurgents, criminal gangs and corrupt government officials alike.

Fort Drum soldiers will be deployed to one of the most unsafe places in Afghanistan.

Hundreds more U.S. troops are headed for Afghanistan’s strife-torn Helmand province to shore up security forces who have struggled in the face of sustained Taliban attacks, officials said.

An Army Blackhawk helicopter sent to rescue the dead and wounded was disabled after its rotors struck the wall of the compound where the special forces team had positioned itself. During the battle, US F-16s conducted 12 airstrikes against the Taliban. “The Afghan forces are on the lead, carrying out the combat mission”.

That decision to withdraw permanent forces from Helmand was driven by the closure of bases and the reduction in the total number of foreign troops, USA military spokesman Brig. But the United States command has interpreted the rules broadly, joining the fight against Taliban insurgents when Afghan forces have broken down, as when the northern city of Kunduz was taken over by the militants in September. On Monday, The Guardian newspaper reported that up to a battalion would be sent to Helmand.

Prior to the drawdown in 2014, 378 U.S. Marines and 450 British soldiers died in Helmand in some of the fiercest fighting since combat operations began in Afghanistan after 9/11. It will be the largest deployment of U.S. troops outside major bases in Afghanistan since the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation combat mission in 2014.

“If the Taliban are attacking coalition forces, then I have everything I need to do that”, Campbell said. Gen. Wilson Shoffner said in an interview last week. In 2015, that number fell to 411. Last month, a USA soldier was killed in Helmand province when their unit came under Taliban fire.

Campbell told Congress that a quarter of Afghanistan is now in danger of falling to the Taliban.

The continuous fighting in the south will likely keep the majority of the 9,800 US forces there for much of 2016, he said. She joined FNC in October 1999 as a Jerusalem-based correspondent.

Jennifer Griffin now serves as a national security correspondent for FOX News Channel.

Lucas Tomlinson is the Pentagon and State Department producer for Fox News Channel.