Senior Taliban commander among 60 militants killed in battle for Sangin

The Afghan government Wednesday rushed reinforcements to Helmand after Taliban militants captured large swathes of a strategic opium-producing district, prompting the first British troop deployment to the troubled province in 14 months.

Though the militants control the vast majority of the district, located in northern Helmand province, the main security buildings in Sangin are under government control, several sources told the Guardian on Wednesday afternoon.

However he said that they remained overstretched forces and needed additional worldwide back-up, particularly close air support.

Sangin is an important prize for the Taliban as it sits on crucial smuggling routes for drugs, arms and other contraband which fund the insurgency. “These factors complicate the battle for Sangin”.

The insurgents are prone to exaggerating its battlefield successes, and Kabul officials denied that Sangin had fallen. A spokesperson for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation mission in Afghanistan confirmed that USA planes had conducted to airstrikes overnight. These troops are supposedly not to be deployed outside the camp, the ministry said.

The commander of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Gen. John Campbell, said recently that the Afghan forces were still challenged by practical matters such as logistics, as well as lagging confidence.

United States military jets targeted Taliban fighters, who were said to have seized the police station.

A team of around 10 British soldiers has been deployed to Camp Shorabak in Helmand as part of a wider North Atlantic Treaty Organisation mission to help local forces.

“Those who make such comments do not care to defend Helmand”.

Afghan acting Defense Minister Mohammad Masoom Stanikzai (L) and Interior Minister Noorul Haq Olumi attend a press conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, Dec. 23, 2015. It’s not that we are afraid of death, but we didn’t think that our brothers would leave us like this’.

The spokesman for the Helmand governor, Omar Zwaq, said government troops were able to deliver supplies midafternoon Tuesday to those holed up inside. The county’s stability has been deteriorating at an alarming rate as national armed forces struggle to counter the Taliban following Nato’s withdrawal previous year. The U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation have around 13,000 troops in the country, majority operating under the training mandate.

Shadi Khan, a tribal elder in Sangin who is also director of Sangin District Council, said he was trapped in the base for three days before government forces arrived. The fight for Sangin has been particularly ferocious, with officials saying that only the army base was still in government hands until Tuesday. Provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang said the situation had improved since the beginning of the week but heavy fighting was continuing.