Afghanistan claims halting Taliban offensive in south

By Shadi Khan Saif

KABUL, Afghanistan (AA) - Afghan officials claimed on Wednesday the Taliban's coordinated attacks on Sangin district in the restive southern Helmand province had been thwarted after three days of fighting with multiple casualty claims on both sides.

This comes as a U.S. watchdog noted a 35 percent rise in casualties of the Afghan forces in 2016.

Sangin district, which briefly fell to the Taliban twice in the previous year, was the scene of intense Taliban attacks for days last week with the militants storming dozens of checkpoints.

Umar Zwak, spokesman for the provincial governor, said the Taliban had been forced to retreat. “Our security forces are marching headway victoriously, we have killed 32 militants while more than 40 others are wounded, the battle for Sangin has been won,” Zwak told Anadolu Agency.

He remained tight-lipped about the casualties sustained by security forces.

However, locals in Sangin, and the Taliban said “scores” of government troops had been killed in the latest assault on the district, which is considered key to mount further attacks on the provincial capital Lashkargah, and neighboring provinces of Kandahar and Uruzgan.

In a message to the local media, the Taliban said it killed “more than 100 personnel” as well as confiscated a sizable number of weapons and overran 20 checkpoints with five military centers.

An independent verification of the death toll on both sides could not be made due to lack of access to the media in the remote area.

According to the latest report by the U.S government's Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a total of 6,785 Afghan security personnel were killed between Jan. 1 and Nov. 12 last year, with another 11,777 wounded.

A day earlier, the country’s top military and civilian leadership, including Abdullah Abdullah, the chief executive officer, assured the Kabul government’s full backing in the area, and vowed that Helmand would not be allowed to fall to the Taliban.