Posted on 12/21/2015 7:21:08 PM PST by UMCRevMom@aol.com
The Taliban has for days been fighting to gain control of Sangin, a key district of the Helmand province that U.S. Marines battled to secure during the war in Afghanistan.
The Guardian reported that Taliban fighters stormed Afghan police headquarters in the district Monday morning, according to a western official, but were held off from taking control of the security building by an airstrike, likely launched by NATO.
On Sunday, deputy governor of Helmand Mohammad Jan Rasoulyar, addressing Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, wrote on Facebook that Helmand was close to collapsing amid pressure from the Taliban.
"I know that bringing up this issue on social media will make you very angry," Rasoulyar wrote. "But … Helmand stands on the brink. Ninety men have been killed in Gereshk and Sangin districts in the last two days."
According to BBC, police commander Mohammad Dawood reported being surrounded by Taliban fighters for two days, warning that Afghan police were running out of ammunition and needed immediate help.
"I have casualties lying around me; we haven't eaten for the past two days," Dawood said Sunday. "If we don't get support in the next hour or so, our fighters will be captured alive. We only have the police HQ under our control and have a battalion of the national army with us. The district office and the intelligence directorate are under enemy control."
In his Facebook post, Rasoulyar asked the Afghan president to "be quick and act" on the situation in Sangin in order to protect Helmand. The Taliban has for months been battling to retake areas of the Helmand province, its fighters taking and, in some cases, maintaining control of multiple districts.
"Helmand will collapse to the enemies and it's not like Kunduz, where we could launch an operation from the airport to retake it. That is just impossible and a dream," Rasoulyar further wrote.
The Taliban held control of Kunduz for 15 days before being driven from the northern city in mid-October, during which time the fighters destroyed government facilities, freed prisoners, and stole military equipment.
The governor of Helmand said Monday that the Afghan government forces still maintained control of the primary security buildings in the district.
Still, Nargis Rokhshani, a local council member, warned that Helmand will be in danger of falling completely to the Taliban "if the British and American forces do not help, and the government does not think about Helmand."
It wouldn’t even be wrong to encourage it
When Bush first went into the war after 911 I told my wife we will never win because we’re not prepared to do what would have to be done. Afghanistan should be a big sheet of glass. There is nothing there that is useful to this planet.
You cannot stop these warring nations from their tribal wars.....the problem now is that ISIS is recruiting many of the Taliban to fight with them In Aphganistan the Taliban do not have the monetary resources to keep them from joining with ISIS. LAst I saw ISIS was paying them $700. a month which is one heck of a lot of money in that country!
I wonder if Obama is secretly funding the Taliban to defeat the US troops? Sound crazy? Just look at what is going on in Syria. Its a Cluster fudge
I am pretty sure that this is what Trump would do to them .......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWejiXvd-P8
Obama's deeply invested in the Global Idea of re-distribution of populations. How and what collateral damage this brings with it is of no concern...the "idea" trumps everything else and that of moving it forward. He will never count the cost to life nor limb....the agenda trumps it all.
BTW I see his vacations and personal trips have now exceeded $98 million.....
Interesting photo just before he left for Hawaii.....I suspect more times then not he's more than anxious to get leave his office and the job he doesn't do.
The issue is that the Taliban are now funded and armed by Russia, China and Iran as a bulwark against ISIS/Dae’sh!
Another “Victory” for Obama.
How can this possibly be going on for days? Why don’t we just drop some ammo and reinforcements? Barack Obama is on the verge of losing this war.
The democrats put people in harm’s way and then do not support them. they then blame everyone else for the failures.
The sad fact is if we leave then we are finished as a player in Asia. Afghanistan will fall to the Taliban, they will form a partnership with ISIS, and then they will make a move on Pakistan.
The sadder fact is if we stay we will NEVER pacify the place, even with a Trump/Cruz running the show. It will be money suck and a killing field for our soldiers.
You have it locked. I don’t care what happens there. Close our borders and Nuke up. Move the troops to the Southern Border with Mexico. Get the Wahhabis out of this Country and live happily ever after. The assured destruction of the entire Middle East area for any attack on our nation will absolutely work ,I assure you. Tell the Saudis— It better not happen. It is the Sunni threat that is a real threat to us ( Wahhabi sect) . But if the Shiites want to glow in the dark, that is fine too. They don’t.
"Death to America!"
What an effing joke! One C-130 gunship would make mince meat out of these ragheads in one pass. Bring out the “Puff!”
These soldiers need an NCO who can make them wear their helmets. If the average bulked-up GI can deal with the heat, the average underweight Afghan soldier can, too...
Many good men have died because of this traitorous rat and many more will as well. The worst mistake this country ever did was elect this turd. In the end, the harm done by him and his political allies may well exceed that of our first Civil War.
Preventing a nation-state from falling into the hands of the Taliban, lest it become a staging area for God knows what.
Pretty soon half the demented actors over there are going to be able to put their hands on some pretty big ballistic hardware .... want them to be able to deploy it without molestation, as Saddam did when he was rocketing Tel Aviv?
One of those will eventually have a "yield", in kilotons.
Every day Obama works for Islam, to weaken us in the face of regional powers and delay our own projects. The US arsenal is now about 1/4 what it was when Bush 41 left office.
Pretty soon we'll be down to parity with the Chinese and in deficit to the Russians. Then what, when the president of 1.4 billion Chinese starts telling us how things are going to be? But Obama lives for that.
Part of what you are seeing is "normal" -- for us. One weakness we have, as against tyrannical regimes, is change of administrations => change of purposes, ideas, strategies; leading to inconsistent efforts.
Abraham Lincoln, in Congress (as a Whig), tried to screw with President Polk and his Mexican War policy. Polk eventually wound up winning us the entire Southwest. (We're lucky Obama's not ready to pull out of Arizona and California yet.)
Of course, nobody could anticipate the wreckage Obama intended to inflict on our foreign and defense policies. So that is something new in American politics since the Communist SDS took over the Democratic Party.
You couldn't, in 2003, have foreseen the 'Rat backstabbing that started as soon as our tanks crossed the berm. I'd give a shiny new quarter to know whether it was a called play, and whether Hillary knew she and the rest of them were going to turn on Bush, drag out all their 1972 protest signs, and start playing New Mobe as soon as we were committed.
(As far as dragging out old signs .... that's exactly what Houston's Communist cadre did the minute bombs started falling in Afghanistan. They started "protesting" and doing guerrilla-theater confrontations with Houston cops the very first day of hostilities. They were led by a University of Houston professor who taught a course on the Vietnamese War.)
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