Taliban and US launch fresh attacks and airstrikes in Afghanistan as peace talks continue in Qatar

Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand and the former centre of the long British military mission in Afghanistan, is coming under waves of attacks from the Taliban with the US carrying out airstrikes in an attempt to halt the offensive.

The assault, which has also targeted other strategic locations in the province, is taking place while the Taliban leadership is in peace talks with the Afghan government and had given undertakings  to the Americans that they would drastically cut down violence against security forces.

It also comes after a sudden spurt of messages from the US president and his administration  about the withdrawal of US led international forces from the country which, Afghan officials claim, have emboldened the insurgency.

Under the terms of negotiations in Qatar, the pull-out of the vast majority of the troops is not due to take place by May next year. Trump, however, tweeted last week that they should be home by Christmas. This was after his national security advisor, Robert O’Brien had announced that numbers would be cut to 2,500 rather than the scheduled 4,500 by early next year.

General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointedly refused on Monday to back the early departure. He said “I think that Robert O’Brien or anyone else can speculate as they see fit. I’m going to engage in the rigorous analysis of the situation based on the conditions and the plans that I am aware of and my conversations with the president.”

The commander, rarely among senior security officials in the US, is said to get along with Trump, and faced criticism for appearing at the White House when security forces were used to disperse protestors so that the president could be photographed outside the White House holding a Bible. Milley later apologised for his presence.  

General Milley, along with almost all his fellow Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been quarantining at home following the coronoavirus outbreak at the White House which made the president ill.

He stressed to The New York Times that the withdrawal agreement with the Taliban was conditions based. “So we’re monitoring all of those conditions closely. And we’re, the military, are giving our best military advice on those conditions so that the president can make an informed, deliberate, responsible decision”, said the General.

The Taliban are reported to have endorsed Trump for next month’s US election.  

According to CBS News, the group’s spokesman said “we hope he will win the election and wind up US military presence in Afghanistan”. Another senior official told the American channel  “when we heard about Trump being Covid-19 positive, we got worried for his health, but seems he is getting better”.

Mujahid has subsequently claimed that CBS had “misinterpreted and misrepresented” what he had said. But a former senior Taliban official in Kabul who maintains close links with the group told The Independent “Trump is a known; we don’t think he understands or is interested in Afghanistan. He will withdraw, one never knows what another president will do.”

The sustained  Taliban offensive  has already led to the seizure of the district of Nawa, which controls entry points into the city and Bolan, adjoining the centre. There were also assaults at other important points in the province, including Babaji, its’ commercial hub, and a string of towns along the main route, Highway 601.

General Scott Miller, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan said “the Taliban need to immediately stop their offensive actions in Helmand Province and reduce their violence around the country. It is not consistent with the US-Taliban agreement and undermines the ongoing Afghan Peace Talks”.

Both Afghan and American officials say the Taliban have reneged on pledges made during talks with Washington in Qatar that they would reduce violence against government forces. They are also accused of failing to cut ties with al-Qaeda which has re-established itself in the country.

Abdul Majid Akhundzada, a member of the Helmand Provincial Council, said that clashes had been taking place for more than 48 hours and continued to intensify with the insurgents breaking into Lashkar Gah’s security belt. Omar Zwek, spokesperson for the governor, denied that there had been major reverses, maintaining that there had been a planned temporary withdrawl from checkpoints in Babaji.

A senior Afghan official told The Independent that the insurgents had made inroads by storming posts in large numbers and using suicide bombers. But government forces have launched counter-attacks killing around 20 fighters while the intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) had arrested the “deputy governor” of the Taliban “shadow administration” of Helmand, Mawlawi Ghafoor.

Capturing Lashkar Gah will be a symbolic triumph for the Taliban. Helmand was chosen as the location for Britain’s deployment in 2006 because of its strategic value and also because it produced the largest amount of opium in the country.

The UK pulled out its last troops in 2014 with US troops, mainly special forces, taking their place. The departing British commander, Brigadier Rob Thomson, saying “we can be proud of what we have achieved here. There is no doubt that we have contributed to a brighter future in Afghanistan.”  

David Cameron, the then prime minister, declared “mission accomplished”. He held “our incredible servicemen and women have driven al-Qaeda out and they have built up and trained the Afghan forces, none of which even existed in 2001, so that the Afghans can take control of their own security...”

A total of 456 UK service personnel were killed in Afghanistan. Five of them died in four years after the overthrow of the Taliban regime by US and British forces in 2002: the rest of the fatalities followed the Helmand deployment.