Posted on 02/02/2007 10:36:19 PM PST by HAL9000
The talibans control Musa Qala, according to the ministry for Defense
KANDAHAR (Afghanistan) - the talibans controlled Saturday morning the locality of Musa Qala, chief town of a district of the same name in the province of Helmand (southern of Afghanistan), announced the Afghan ministry of Defense.
Attacked in the night of Thursday to Friday by an unspecified number of “students in religion”, Musa Qala “has been under the control of the talibans for yesterday (Friday) afternoon ", declared in AFP the spokesman of the ministry, the general Zahir Azimi, by stressing that there were no more police officers on the spot.
A spokesman of the international Force of assistance to the safety (Isaf) of NATO, colonel Thomas Collins, recognized that the talibans “occupied the seat of the Musa Qala government” and “their positions strengthened”. “But of saying that they control all the district, it is to go too far”, it underlined.
“We must keep this information in its context. The talibans already in the past seized chief towns of districts and held them during a few hours or a few days before being driven out of it”, it has says.
The local authorities admitted Friday having lost the control of this locality, in the center of a “agreement of peace” discussed with the British troops of Isaf, after an attack perpetrated before the paddle against the seat of the administration and the disarmament of the police force by the talibans.
The district of Musa Qala, in the north of the province of Helmand, was directed by a council of the tribal chiefs since the concluding of a “agreement” last September with the Afghan authorities and the British troops of Isaf to put an end to the engagements in this area.
At the end of this agreement, the tribal chiefs engaged so that the talibans leave this district if the British soldiers of Isaf made some in the same way. Auxiliary police officers recruited by the tribal chiefs were charged to ensure the safety in the district.
The British ministry of Defense showed Friday evening the talibans, whose integrist mode held Kabul of 1996 to 2001, “to have disavowed” this agreement concluded with the tribal chiefs.
According to detractors' of this agreement, the talibans never really left the district like showed it the fatal combat at the beginning of December between the British troops and of the talibans close to the town of Musa Qala and an air raid carried out by Isaf against a HQ of the talibans in this district.
The governor of the province of Helmand, Asadullah Wafa, estimated that the last attack of the talibans had been perpetrated in reprisals with this raid which, according to Isaf, had killed at the end of January a commander taliban.
This attack moreover intervened whereas the British must start to reinforce as of this weekend their quota deployed in the south. Some 800 additional soldiers must on the whole be dispatched in this area where Great Britain will have from here the end of the summer 5.800 men.
The province of Helmand, being next to that of Kandahar and bordering on Pakistan, is one of conflict country and the principal producing area of opium. Afghanistan is by far the first world producer of opium which, according to experts', would be in particular used to finance the insurrectionists.
It is a lot easier to find them and take care of them when they gather in one place.
We should offer to buy every shred of opium the Afghans produce at 5% over whatever the smugglers are paying and then sell it to Big Pharma so it can be turned into pharmaceutical codeine and morphine.
Big Pharma can then sell it at market prices in order to relieve a very real shortage of these drugs.
This would deprive the bad guys of huge amounts of illicit income and have a very real benefit to sick and injured people all over the world.
L
Interesting history reading here...http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/afghanistan/index.htm#48
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.