U.S. airstrikes in Afghan district under Taliban siege

The Taliban, who already control nearly all of Sangin district, said on Wednesday that they had captured police and administrative buildings in the district centre, where small groups of police had been holding out. One security official said the assailants held some civilians as “human shields”, which had complicated their operation.

The Taliban statement listed barriers to peace negotiations, including United Nations sanctions on individual Taliban figures which were extended this week, and the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan, with specific mention of the British troops that arrived in Helmand on Wednesday to provide support for Afghan forces battling in Sangin.

Strategically located, and a centre for opium production, Sangin would be a significant gain for the Taliban.

The spokesman for the Afghan army in Helmand, Guam Rasoul Zazai, said that Afghan military air strikes had also bombarded Taliban strongholds in Sangin overnight, killing 25 insurgents and wounding another 12.

In addition, nine Taliban men were killed and another wounded with a final survivor still resisting security forces, the ministry said.

A spokesman for Nato’s resolute support mission said there had been no reports of casualties among the hundreds of worldwide personnel at the air base. “Parts of Sangin are under the Taliban control but not the police and military installations”, he said.

All but two of Helmand’s 14 districts are effectively controlled or heavily contested by the Taliban, who also recently came close to overrunning the provincial capital Lashkar Gah. It sits on crucial smuggling routes for drugs, arms and other contraband which fund the insurgency.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has sought to mend ties with longtime regional nemesis Pakistan – the Taliban’s historic backers – in a bid to restart peace talks with the insurgents.

However, Helmand’s deputy governor, Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar, denied the claim.

Pakistan facilitated the first round of direct peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban group in Islamabad this year but the second round of the talks scheduled in July failed with the disclosure of the death of Taliban founder and supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. They were deployed to Camp Shorabak, on the site of Camp Bastion, the former British Army headquarters in Afghanistan, the ministry said.

Security has worsened across the war-torn country as the Taliban stepped up their opposition to Afghan security forces following the end of the global combat mission past year. Analysts say if the strategic district falls, it will be very hard to get the militants back to the negotiating table.