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Taliban attack government offices in Afghanistan’s Helmand Taliban attack police headquarters in Afghanistan’s Helmand
(about 3 hours later)
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban attacked government offices early Wednesday in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province, where the insurgents have been battling government forces for months. KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban attacked a police headquarters and an intelligence agency office early Wednesday in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province, where the insurgents have been battling government forces for months.
Omar Zwak, spokesman for Helmand’s governor, said gunmen attacked the police headquarters and intelligence agency offices in Gereshk. He said security forces repelled the attack on the intelligence facility. At least three police officers were killed along with seven attackers, said Jabbar Karaman, a lawmaker appointed by President Ashraf Ghani to investigate the situation in Helmand. Omar Zwak, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said the attack on the intelligence facility was repelled.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, in which suicide bombers struck inside the police compound. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in Helmand, a major poppy-growing region where insurgents have been battling government forces as well as fighting among themselves over smuggling routes.
Jabbar Karaman, a lawmaker appointed by President Ashraf Ghani to investigate the situation in Helmand, said that seven attackers had been killed in the ongoing gunfight with police, as well as three police officers, with an unknown number of civilians caught in the crossfire. Afghan forces have struggled to combat the Taliban since the U.S. and NATO formally concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014, and the insurgents have spread their footprint across the country.
Earlier reports said four attackers were involved, but the number appears to be much higher. The independent Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, a local think tank, meanwhile said the army has suffered from the theft of assets, disloyalty among troops, as well as poor equipment and logistics.
Fighting has raged across Helmand, a major poppy-growing region, for the past three months, with the insurgents battling government forces and fighting among themselves for control of smuggling routes. U.S. and British forces saw heavy fighting in Helmand at the height of the 15-year war. Its report said a “culture of dependence” pervaded the army, left over from years in which international troops provided air cover and logistical support.
Since the international combat mission drew down in 2014, the Taliban have spread their fight across most of the country, forcing Afghan forces plagued by corruption and incompetence to spread their own assets thin. The weaknesses have been brutally exposed in Helmand, which has seen little of the winter lull that brings relative calm to other areas. The army is struggling to develop an offensive capacity, which it has lacked throughout the 15-year war, when U.S. and British troops took the fight to the insurgents.
U.S. and Afghan military officials have said that the army in Helmand is being rebuilt so that it can take the fight to the Taliban, something it has not been able to do throughout the war. Both the United States and Britain have sent reinforcements to the region under their new training and advising mandate.
The Afghan government is hoping for a direct dialogue with the Taliban this month, with the aim of eventually holding peace talks, but the Taliban have said they will not participate.
The peace process was derailed last summer, when Kabul revealed that the Taliban’s founder and leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had been dead for more than two years.
The head of the U.S. Central Command, Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, told the Senate Armed Services Committee this week that Afghanistan has been a “very challenging environment” for the past year.
He cited the change of government in late 2014,the reduced international military footprint, and the death of Mullah Omar, which “caused the Taliban to fracture a bit” while giving rise to a new leader — his deputy Mullah Akhtar Mansoor -- “who set out to prove himself with increased activity.”
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Associated Press writer Mirwais Khan contributed to this story.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.