Resurgent Taliban threaten US exit strategy for Afghanistan

Channel 4 UK ^ | Alex Thomson

[sunmars]

In parts of Helmand province, the UK and the US lost more soldiers in the long Afghan war than any other Afghan area. Helmand – where the fighting was long and hard. Helmand – where so many lost limbs or were otherwise terribly mutilated in a long and now lost war by a Nato now thoroughly preoccupied with matters elsewhere.

But 6 September the New York Times published an important report with the story Kabuli officials want to cover up and nobody anywhere near Nato would want to tell.

They are saying more than 200 police officers and Afghan soldiers have been killed there across the summer, and one key town, Musa Qala – over which the British fought – is in danger of falling again to Taliban control.

09 taliban r w Resurgent Taliban threaten US exit strategy for Afghanistan

The Times says:

“‘The situation is deteriorating and the Taliban are almost in the bazaar,’ the governor of Musa Qala district, Haji-Mohammad Sharif, said Friday night. ‘If the situation remains the same, the district will soon fall to the hands of the Taliban.’”

Officials say the Musa Qala fighting has been particularly heavy in the past 10 days, but there has also been a sustained offensive in Sangin, where I reported on successive British army units patrolling the poppy fields down the years and claiming to be building firm relations with the local leaders for a transition one day in the future, to Afghan army forces.

According to one New York Times source, an army general speaking on condition of anonymity, the Taliban have launched 788 attacks in the past three months in Sangin and in two neighbouring districts, Nowzad and Kajaki – all of these names more than familiar to any British soldier who spent time in Helmand.

[livius]

As we take a step back they fill the footprint. There might be a full day difference between our last day and their first.

Very eloquently and aptly put. And very tragically true. You must have been there.

[Zhang Fei]

There comes a time in which we in the Western world have to say.. "we tried with you filthy mohammedans. And we've had enough of your sh*t." So ESAD.

Not happening any time soon. Think about the flak Truman got for nuking Japan. And we were losing over a hundred KIA a day, as we got closer to the home islands. Now, if they nuke NYC, all bets are off.