Topic: Meanwhile in Afghanistan... (Read 2947 times)

Is the US in Afghanistan to perpetuate the opioid epidemic?  Its just a hunch but no one seems to know why we are in Afghanistan and this seems like a plausible possibility. 

The Taliban banned opium production in 2000 and bam the US invaded in 2001.  Opium production in Afghanistan has gone up since then.

So, you figure that they somehow come in there without any intervention in the politics of the country? Frankly I find that highly unlikely. You may find it laughable, that´s your business.

Lol.... the Chinese are always after the raw materials. They don't care about the human rights or anything else, as long as they could secure the resources. They have made investments in countries such as Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Angola, which are well known for human rights abuses. They need the raw materials. Else how could they earn valuable foreign currency by exporting the manufactured end-products?

The Chinese have been buying into Afghan mining operations and have serious enterprises going there. They´re intervening in their own ways there, it goes with the territory. You can´t do any meaningful business otherwise.

The Chinese are not intervening in Afghan politics, unlike the Russians. The latter has supported the Dari-speaking ethnic groups (Tadzhiks, Uzbeks, Hazara.etc) for many years now, against the dominance of the southerners (Pashthuns). The Afghans are broadly divided in to the Pashthun (currently ruling) and non-Pashthun factions. The Americans support the former, while the Russians support the latter.

What was the line from before 9/11 again...You´ll receive a carpet full of gold or be carpet bombed...or something to that effect. It´s always about the money, I´m afraid.

http://www.rawstory.com/2009/11/ambassador-cia-people-tortured/

It´ll eventually end up in the sphere of China and Russia. They´re making their inroads. The Chinese are heavily into mining and the Russians are even donating weapons to the regime´s forces. And maybe also to the Taliban, who knows.

That is why no one has invested their money on constructing the pipeline till now. Afghanistan is one of the most volatile countries in the world. I would never invest even a penny of my funds there. Who would spend $3 billion or $4 billion in building a pipeline, which could be destroyed by the Taliban or the ISIS within a few days after its completion?

I doubt that they can secure any pipeline, they can´t even secure the capital. There are regular rocket attacks there, even an attempt to get Kerry the other day.

Agreed, the opium trade is definately a major factor for the ongoing US occupation in Afghanistan. Wouldn't say they are not much interested in the TAP, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan stated that all the current US military bases in Afghanistan are positioned all the way along where the proposed pipeline will be built (I'll try and find the video where he gave a speech about it). If I remember rightly, he even mentioned witnessing several US army lorries loaded with opium!

The Americans are there in Afghanistan for the opium trade. They are not much interested in the trans-Afghan pipeline, as India is just another third world shit hole. The Americans need to make sure that Afghanistan is producing good quantities of opium. This opium is converted in to Heroin, and smuggled across the border to Iran and Russia. Afghan opium has enabled the NATO to wipe-out a significant part of the Russian and Iranian youth, thereby weakening these two rival nations.

I don't think the US will be leaving Afghanistan any time soon:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan_Pipeline

what do you think that US will leave in afghanistan that should be discussed.
he will destoy it all.

This country has to find its own path, no one else can't help, not Europe and USA nor Russia. They can only make things worse. But this will be hard, I think that there is total chaos and ordinary people suffer the most.

Afghanistan Afghanistan! You're in trouble for your sources. Greedy West brought you chaos and blood

Afghanistan is destroying gradually If War continues it faces great problem in future. Its people will loss fundamental rights.

Germany Calls For Afghanistan-Taliban Negotiations - Steinmeier

19:31 01.04.2016

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that the recent terrorist attacks show the importance and necessity of cooperation among nations in the fight against terrorism.

DUSHANBE (Sputnik) — Berlin is calling for negotiations to begin between the Afghan government and the Taliban movement, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Friday.
Members of the Taliban and Afghan government leaders were expected to engage in peace talks last March, with the aim of moving toward settling the 15-year conflict. However, on March 5, the Taliban leadership announced that it would not attend peace talks until all foreign soldiers had left Afghanistan and Taliban fighters had been released.



"We can now observe progress in Afghanistan, and it is significant, therefore we support negotiations between the country's government and the Taliban, as the situation in the region depends on their results," Steinmeier said at a press conference after his meeting with Tajikistan's Foreign Minister Nubuster Sirodjidin Aslov.

According to Germany's top diplomat, the recent terrorist attacks show the importance and necessity of cooperation among nations in the fight against terrorism.
Steinmeier called on Tajikistan's authorities to conduct political consultations and discussions to prevent the growth of radicalization and extremism.

The German foreign minister arrived in Dushanbe earlier in the day as part of his Central Asia tour as the acting chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

http://sputniknews.com/asia/20160401/1037345930/germany-afghanistan-taliban.html

Afghanistan!  Pity country!
First Russian Occupation and then American
For its sources, that country couldn't find peace.
Al Queda, Taleban or ISIS all excuse. Real aim is Afghanistan's sources.
Do you think that USA and other western forces against to the terror?  NO!  In contrary, they are the biggest supporter of terror.

Dan Simpson: Vietnam redux?
America’s failure to exit Afghanistan has a familiar ring

February 24, 2016 12:00 AM

By Dan Simpson / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

I realize that I may be becoming something of a broken record on Afghanistan, continuing to insist that we should get out of there while the getting is good.  Nonetheless, as the smell of death wafts under the doors of that policy edifice, I feel compelled to try one more time to make the case.

Perhaps it comes from having just returned from Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon, where a tour guide insisted on showing us the building from the roof of which the last official Americans were evacuated by helicopter from the South Vietnamese capital. I knew about it already and had seen photographs and film footage, but it still made me singularly uncomfortable to look at the site of America’s final humiliation there at the end of decades of war.  The war cost thousands of American and other lives, and a fortune in money needed at home.

Why do we have to do the same thing again in Afghanistan?

Its government is rotten. Like a fish it has spoiled from the head down. In this case, the corruption is opium. The United States has spent an estimated $7 billion over the past 14 years to fight the opium trade in Afghanistan. Instead, it is now the world’s largest exporter of opium, a true narco-state. 

Forget hearts and minds; the Afghan government of President Ashraf Ghani and the Taliban fight for control of the opium trade as much as Mexican drug gangs duke it out for control of the drug trade there. The Kabul government wants continued American military involvement to enable it to hold onto its piece of the opium and heroin action.

Second, the Russians, no innocents in Afghan matters, have decided that cooperation with the United States in Afghanistan is “useless,” in the words of a senior Russian official.  Until now, they have seen some virtue in working with us to a degree there. Afghanistan is near enough to their own borders. Militant Islam can be something of a threat to Russia and, closer at hand, to the former Soviet, predominantly Muslim republics — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — that stand between it and Afghanistan.

Now, Moscow has apparently made a decision to concentrate its efforts on building up the armed forces of Tajikistan rather than cooperating with the United States in Afghanistan through agreeing to staging rights and other assistance to the United States in the ’Stans.  It’s rats leaving a sinking ship, or ships leaving a sinking rat. Choose your metaphor.

The third very significant sign that the Kabul ship is going down is that, in spite of mighty, expensive, labor-intensive American efforts to train the Afghan army, it is not only still unable to hold onto territory in the face of the Taliban, it is also crumbling from within. Last week Afghan security forces carried out a singularly ignoble raid on a hospital run by the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, abducting and killing three patients.

For me, the current actions of the Afghan security forces, in principle overseen by U.S. forces, have the tinny echo of American troops in Vietnam trying to restrain some of the more reprehensible actions of the South Vietnamese soldiers. They became more and more desperate as they felt the hot breath of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces bearing down on them near the end.

The most chilling recent figure to come out of Afghanistan was the United Nations assessment that 2015 was the worst year yet for civilian casualties. The United Nations said 3,545 civilians died last year and 7,457 were injured, exceeding the 2014 total. A quarter of the civilian dead and wounded were children.

Ironically enough, the Ashraf Ghani government almost certainly realizes that its days are numbered and that it needs to cut a deal with the Taliban if its people — or perhaps its opium traders — are to survive a transition that almost certainly has to involve Taliban participation in government. There is no reason to believe that Mr. Ghani and his associates cannot cut a deal with the Taliban. They are, after all, Pashtuns. They speak the same language, they operate by the same code and they are somewhat used to each other after all these years.

It is we who cannot survive a transition. We are the milk cow tethered to the tree under which the Afghans can gather to cut a deal. America’s president has said — falsely in the event — that he was going to end the Iraq War but was going to persist in Afghanistan. America has sold a lot of expensive military equipment to the Afghans, on credit, which it doesn’t want to write off. America’s politicians have run up the flag on Afghanistan, assuming — without justification — that the place represents some threat to the United States, that we have an actual stake in the survival of Mr. Ghani’s government.

Has anyone looked at the map to see where Afghanistan is, in terms of assessing the threat to us that anything there can pose? We are so far now from 9/​11 that it should be put firmly on the shelf of history. If a new Osama bin Laden were cooking up something there against us, we would see it through overhead intelligence and take it out with drones or bombs. Afghanistan now is just one more war that we don’t know how to end, that we don’t know how to move beyond, almost 15 years later.

It is some generals’ ticket to rich post-retirement employment, some consultants’ basis for “wise” analysis, more cash for the defense industries or a flag for American politicians to wave as they lead us in the chant “USA, USA” or in silly promises of revisited greatness. Holding on to the bitter end in Afghanistan is not greatness. Greatness is having the sense to pull the plug before it becomes necessary to leave from the roof.

 All the signs are there.  All we have to do is be smart enough to read them and act before it is too late.

Dan Simpson, a former U.S. ambassador, is a Post-Gazette associate editor (dsimpson@post-gazette. com, 412-263-1976).

http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/columnists/2016/02/24/Dan-Simpson-Vietnam-redux/stories/201602230025

People watch too much movies and TV. They probably expect vastly inferior insurgent forces to line up orderly in the desert and charge the United States military head on to be easily wiped out by bombing.

That is how guerrilla warfare is being fought around the world. They attack unarmed people and other soft targets, because if they attack the Afghan Armed Forces, then there will be a lot of casualties. That is why they are concentrating on the small towns and the rural parts of Afghanistan, where the dominance of the army is very weak.

Rahim Sarwan, Noor Zahid
February 11, 2016 2:57 PM

Millions of residents in the bitterly cold Afghan capital Kabul have been living mostly without power for the last two weeks as critical grid line from neighboring Uzbekistan has been cut off.  The Afghan government blames Taliban attacks for the disruption in the power supply.

Taliban insurgents blew up two power pylons in the Dand-e-Shahabuddin area in the strategic northeastern province of Baghlan after security forces launched a massive operation against the Taliban, Afghan officials say.

The Taliban denied responsibility for destroying power lines and blame Afghan government forces.

The state-owned utility company Da Afghanistan Breshna Shirkat (DABS) has not been able to repair the pylons as the military offensive is still going on, DABS officials say.

“We cannot give this assurance [time frame for towers' repair]. Security forces should give this assurance as to when they may clear the area,” a spokesperson for DABS told VOA. “Once allowed, we could repair the pylons within eight hours.”

About 60 percent of the electrical supply to the city has been cut. The power shortage has not only plunged large swathes of Kabul into darkness, but it has also curtailed the operations of most government departments.

Kabul’s passport department, which receives thousands of applications every day, has seen the number of passports issued decrease by 500 daily.

“Customers have to wait for hours,” Sayed Omar Sabour, the head of the passport department told VOA.

“I have been waiting for two weeks to get a passport,” a customer told VOA. “What kind of a country is this? This is the capital of the country which is supposed to have power around the clock.”

Electricity is the most affordable source of heat and power for cooking for Kabul's estimated five million residents.

http://www.voanews.com/content/taliban-battle-leads-to-kabul-blackout/3187048.html

“The dam is about to break”: why 2016 could be a very bad year for Afghanistan

Updated by Zack Beauchamp on January 25, 2016, 8:30 a.m. ET

This is part one of a three-part series on the war in Afghanistan. Part two, which will run on Tuesday, looks at the emergence of ISIS in Afghanistan. Part three, to publish Wednesday, examines the role of Pakistan and other outside actors.

Things in Afghanistan are bad — bad enough that late last year, President Obama halted the long-awaited withdrawal of American troops from the country. A few months later, the Taliban overran the city of Kunduz, the first major urban center it controlled since the US invasion in 2001. The Taliban were quickly pushed out of the city, but the fact that they took it at all is a testament to how strong they've grown of late. We've also seen a worrying rise in ISIS activity there.

To a lot of Afghanistan watchers, these factors make it seem like things are about to hit the fan: that is, that 2016 is going to be an epically bad year. To get a better sense of why, I reached out to Jason Lyall, an expert on Afghanistan and insurgency at Yale University. Lyall painted a gloomy picture of a resurgent Taliban and a vulnerable Afghan government, one that's only likely to be reversed with a serious — and perhaps unthinkable — military reinvestment by the US and partners in the region.

What follows a transcript of our emailed correspondence, edited slightly for length and clarity.

Zack Beauchamp: You tweeted something really ominous the other day: "I don't think we'll be able to ignore Afghanistan in 2016 like we have for the past few years. Just feels like the dam is about to break." What, exactly, did you mean by that? Is the Taliban that poised for big victories?

Jason Lyall: There's substantial evidence that the Taliban have grown stronger over the past several years. According to our data, the Taliban were able to launch offensives with 100 or more men in 41 districts in 2014. In 2015, that number rose to 65.

In 2015, the Taliban were able to launch and coordinate three major offensives in Kunduz, Faryab, and Helmand, each involving at least 1,000 men. The fact that the Taliban were able to seize and hold Kunduz City, a major urban center, for almost two weeks is alarming.

In addition, the UN has tracked the steady increase in Taliban control throughout Afghanistan; by mid-2015, at least half of Afghanistan's districts were judged under Taliban control or at significant risk.

"WHY WOULD THE TALIBAN SEEK PEACE NOW WHEN THEY APPEAR TO HAVE ALL THE BATTLEFIELD MOMENTUM?"

Taken together, the Taliban have shown an impressive ability to coordinate multiple offensives, seize and hold territory, and inflict substantial losses on Afghan security forces. At the same time, the drawdown of US forces, along with a reluctance to use airpower, means that the forces arrayed against the Taliban are considerably weaker than in the past.

We shouldn't oversell the Taliban threat, however. The Taliban is experiencing factionalism at its top levels, and it has grown increasingly decentralized in recent years, making it more difficult for it to exercise authority over local commanders. That's why these recent offensives are so surprising: The Taliban, despite its own internal weaknesses, has still found a way to generate significant pressure on the Afghan government and forces.

ZB: How did they make such a comeback?

JL: I wouldn't necessarily call it a "comeback." The Taliban has proven to be an incredibly resilient organization that has slowly, patiently, extended its reach throughout Afghanistan. It has employed a mixture of persuasion and coercion among local populations while gradually shifting from hit-and-run tactics to more sustained direct engagements with Afghan security forces.

Again, the withdrawal of US and NATO forces beginning in 2011 — and especially the reduction of close air support sorties — has also allowed the Taliban to coordinate in larger groups and to undertake combat operations against isolated (and often dispirited) Afghan forces.

ZB: Why, after huge amounts of aid from the United States, is the Afghan government so weak?

JL: The current Afghan government is weak for at least three reasons.

First, because it exercises weak or contested control over so many areas, it lacks the ability to tax the population. As a result, its revenues can only cover a fraction of its needs, creating a snowball effect where the absence of services raises questions about its legitimacy.

Second, the current National Unity Government (NUG)'s legitimacy is also questioned by some of the population, in part because of its brokered backroom birth but also because it is currently beset by internal divisions and factions that are undermining its ability to coordinate coherent policies, including against the Taliban.

Third, I would argue that the current government is weak because of all the aid money spent by the United States and other donors. These funds were often mismanaged, contributed to corruption and violence, and led to unsustainable development practices that are now coming to haunt the Afghan government as aid money dries up.

ZB: We've heard a lot of rumblings about an ISIS presence in Afghanistan. How significant is its foothold there?

JL: ISIS certainly has a foothold in Afghanistan, though its presence is largely confined to several districts in three provinces (Nangarhar, Zabul, and Kunduz). Most estimates place ISIS strength at 1,000 to 2,000 fighters and camp followers at most.

"IT WOULD BE POSSIBLE TO REVERSE TALIBAN MOMENTUM"

We also have to be careful to note that "ISIS" in Afghanistan is really composed of disgruntled Taliban who were unhappy with the direction of the movement and who were seeking to "rebrand" their factions to gain momentum. These defections to ISIS only increased after the death of [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar was publicly announced in July 2015, as splinter groups broke away from the new leader, Akhtar Mohammad Mansour.

The Taliban have been actively fighting ISIS since about September, and have succeeded in driving them from several districts. There also seems to be little appetite among most Afghans for ISIS's brand of Wahhabism, which comes across as alien to both the Taliban's ideology of Sufism and Deobandism as well as Afghan traditions more generally. Add in the US policy of using drone strikes to target ISIS leaders, and it appears that ISIS is likely to remain a fringe player, at least for the time being.

ZB: You've said that peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban are likely to fail. Why?

JL: I'm skeptical that the current round of negotiations now getting underway will yield a stable peace settlement. There are many unresolved questions surrounding Taliban motives and organization, for example. Why would the Taliban seek peace now when they appear to have all the battlefield momentum? How widespread is pro-peace sentiment among local commanders? Can Mansour enforce a peace deal, assuming he wants one, or will the trend toward Taliban fragmentation continue?

Questions surround Pakistan's motives, too, and whether it, too, is acting with one voice or if its strategy is hostage to competing interests in Islamabad. Why would it rein in the Taliban when it is moving closer to its objectives? Can Pakistan even exercise that level of control over the Taliban? Right now, there's so many basic questions about the identity of the relevant actors, their motives, and the nature of any acceptable peace to all sides that I'm not optimistic. But I hope I'm wrong.

ZB: If peace negotiations fail, as you expect, is there anything that could be done — either by actors inside Afghanistan or by the US — to turn it around?

JL: It would be possible to reverse Taliban momentum and push them to the negotiation table if there were coordinated action by Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States. If Afghanistan and Pakistan started using force jointly against the Taliban, and if the United States simultaneously stepped up airstrikes and drone strikes against holdout Taliban, then it might be possible to coerce the Taliban to the table.

These coordinated ground and air offensives might degrade Taliban capabilities enough that it begins to worry about its power struggle with ISIS. Fearing that ISIS might step into any emerging power vacuum, and concerned about further losses to its control and its cadres of fighters and supporters, the Taliban (or most of it) might sue for peace.

But there's a lot of "ifs" in this plan, and it isn't clear that Afghanistan and Pakistan can work together — or that Pakistan actually wants to make this work.

http://www.vox.com/2016/1/25/10816330/afghanistan-2016-lyall

Well, it´s about killing the enemy. People have quite happily killed sleeping adversaries for thousands of years.    If they´re unconscious you´re pretty safe while killing them, which is very useful for you I guess.
I don´t think it´s cowardice, just common sense. Of course if you think war is like hollywood nonsense or video games you probably have different ideas.

What absolute cowards these Islamic extremism in Afghanistan are! They either attack unarmed persons or their own sleeping comrade.

Taliban kill 10 Afghan police in insider attack: Officials

KANDAHAR - Agence France-Presse

A  rogue Afghan policeman drugged and then shot dead 10 of his colleagues in the country’s volatile south early on Jan. 26, officials said, the second insider attack on police in just over a week.

The Taliban infiltrator then stole their weapons and fled the police outpost in the Chinarto district of Uruzgan province, authorities said, triggering a manhunt.

The attack just after midnight is part of the Taliban’s unprecedented winter campaign of nationwide violence despite a growing push to restart formal peace talks.

“Our investigation shows that this policeman collaborated with the Taliban, drugged his colleagues and killed them when they were unconscious,” Dost Mohammad Nayab, the spokesman for Uruzgan’s governor, told AFP.

Deputy provincial police chief Rahimullah Khan confirmed the account and said an operation had been launched to track down the killer.

Nine policemen killed, says Taliban

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, giving a different account, said nine policemen were killed after the militants captured the police outpost in Chinarto.

So-called insider attacks - when Afghan soldiers or police turn their guns on their colleagues or on international troops - have been a major problem during NATO’s long years fighting alongside Afghan forces.

On Jan. 17 nine Afghan policemen were shot dead in Uruzgan by four rogue colleagues said to be Taliban infiltrators.

The Afghan military, which has been built from scratch since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, has struggled with insider attack killings, high casualty rates and mass desertions.

Stretched on multiple fronts as the insurgency expands, Afghan forces have largely fought the ascendant Taliban on their own since NATO’s combat mission formally ended in December 2014.

In recent months the Taliban briefly captured the northern city of Kunduz, the first urban center to fall to the insurgents in 14 years of war, and have seized territory in the opium-growing southern province of Helmand.

International efforts for peace talks continue

The uptick in violence comes amid renewed international efforts to revive peace talks with the Taliban, which is locked in a tussle for supporters with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Delegates from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States convened in the Afghan capital last week for a one-day meeting seeking a negotiated end to the 14-year Taliban insurgency.

The first round of the so-called “roadmap” talks was held in Islamabad earlier this month as the four nations try to lay the groundwork for direct dialogue between Kabul and Taliban.

Taliban representatives were notably absent in both rounds and analysts caution that any substantive talks are still a long way off.

The Taliban has stepped up attacks on government and foreign targets in Afghanistan this winter, when fighting usually abates, underscoring a worsening security situation.

Observers say the intensifying insurgency highlights a push by the militants to seize more territory in an attempt to wrangle greater concessions when the talks formally start.
January/26/2016

Afghan Reinforcements Scramble as Taliban Advances on Helmand Capital
Taliban Forces Poised to Seize Three Key Districts Around Capital

by Jason Ditz, January 19, 2016

Continuing what started as the 2015 “spring offensive,” the Taliban is continuing to move heavily into Helmand Province, and is poised to capture the Sangin, Marjah, and Gereshk Districts of the province, which would effectively surround the capital city of Lashkar Gah.

The Taliban made efforts to take Sangin last month, briefly seizing it but ceding parts of it back when reinforcements arrived. Afghan troops are scrambling to the area again in hopes of trying to hold off a much bigger loss this time.

Helmand Province is the center of Afghan opium production, and hugely lucrative for the Taliban to control. They’ve fought heavily over the province for years, and seem to be on the verge of retaking the area from the Afghan security forces.

In addition to the valuable districts themselves, control of the area would also give Helmand control over the main highway between Herat and Kandahar, giving them yet more control over the entire southwestern portion of Afghanistan.

http://news.antiwar.com/2016/01/19/afghan-reinforcements-scramble-as-taliban-advances-on-helmand-capital/

A suicide car bomb struck a bus carrying employees of Afghanistan’s largest independent television broadcaster Wednesday evening, killing seven people and wounding 27, police officials said.

The blast in western Kabul’s Darulaman Road area hit a civilian bus transporting employees of Moby Group, which includes the Tolo TV news channel, the city's police chief, Abdul Rahman Rahimi, told reporters at the scene.

The Taliban, which last year named employees of Tolo and 1TV, another major private broadcaster, as legitimate targets, claimed responsibility for the bombing.....

http://www.latimes.com/world/afghanistan-pakistan/la-fg-afghanistan-media-bombing-20160120-story.html

ISIS doesn't give a fuck about anything. You think a political settlement will stop them.

Foreign Policy ‏@ForeignPolicy  10h10 hours ago
The Taliban now control more territory than at any time since 2001. http://atfp.co/1RnThuP

Mapped: The Taliban Surged in 2015, but ISIS Is Moving In on Its Turf

U.S. Soldier Killed While Fighting Taliban in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — An American soldier was killed and two others were wounded Tuesday in fighting at the heart of a Taliban offensive in southern Afghanistan, the United States military said.

The death took place in Marja, Helmand Province, where American Special Operations forces have been trying to help the Afghan military fend off a fierce Taliban offensive that has claimed several districts over the past few months.

The American casualties came during a push by Afghan and American soldiers to clear territory between Marja and the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, according to Afghan military officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the press.

Later, Afghan and American officials said that an American helicopter was damaged in the area, but they differed on the details.

In Washington, American officials confirmed that a medical evacuation helicopter that had been sent to Marja to help the wounded soldiers was damaged when its rotors struck the wall of a compound there. It was unclear whether the wounded soldiers had yet been evacuated.

But one Afghan military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters, said an American troop transport helicopter went down in enemy territory because of a mechanical problem, and that the casualties came afterward. There were no further details or confirming accounts.

“We are deeply saddened by this loss,” said Brig. Gen. Wilson A. Shoffner, the spokesman for United States military forces here. “On behalf of General Campbell and all of USFOR-A, our heartfelt sympathies go out to the families and friends of those involved.” The statement referred to the American military commander, Gen. John F. Campbell, who is both head of NATO forces and United States Forces – Afghanistan, which includes Special Operations troops.

The United States and NATO pulled all combat forces from Helmand in the spring of 2014, and combat operations by the coalition were scheduled to end by Dec. 31 that year.

The mission of American forces in Afghanistan was to remain in a training and advising role, for the most part. But as the Taliban have gained ground this year, Special Operations troops have been directly involved in the fighting, particularly in Helmand, according to senior Afghan officials and Western diplomats.

Marja had been a longtime Taliban stronghold until a surge of United States Marines took it back beginning in 2010, and until recently it was relatively quiet, even as northern parts of Helmand were besieged by the Taliban. In the past month, the Taliban have increased their activities in the area despite the onset of winter weather.

The death of the soldier Tuesday was believed to be the first confirmed American fatality in southern Afghanistan since the official end of combat operations in 2014, and the first confirmed fatality of 2016.

Shortly after the announcement of the American casualties, a loud explosion was heard in central Kabul, in or near the city’s diplomatic quarter. It was the fourth bombing in the capital since New Year’s Day — including two bombings near the airport on Monday — continuing an unusually high tempo of attacks in the capital and elsewhere.

One of the blasts on Monday came from 3,000 pounds of explosives detonating near the gates of Camp Sullivan, a housing facility for American Embassy staff near the Kabul International Airport, according to a spokesman for the embassy, who did not want to be identified as a matter of official policy. He said that two Afghan civilians were killed in the explosion, but that there were no fatalities inside the camp. An unspecified number of camp personnel were wounded and evacuated for medical treatment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/world/asia/american-soldier-killed-fighting-the-taliban-in-helmand.html?ref=world

Taliban Suicide Bombing Wounds 30 Civilians in Afghan Capital
Truck Bomb Targeted Contractor Camp

by Jason Ditz, January 04, 2016

At least 30 civilians, including nine children, were wounded today when a suicide truck boimber attacked Camp Baron, a heavily guarded residential compound that houses civilian contractors near the airport in the Afghan capital city of Kabul.

The Taliban claimed credit for the bombing, which police say saw the truck detonate at the armored gates outside the complex. Most of the injuries were from flying glass from the massive explosion, or trapped when nearby buildings collapsed.

The Taliban insisted that the claim of only 30 wounded was false, and that they’d killed “dozens of foreigners” in the attack, just the latest in a growing string of strikes against secure compounds across Kabul and Kandahar.

The Taliban has seemed increasingly eager to attack such secure areas to undercut the Afghan government’s claims to have the situation in hand, showing they can attack pretty much anywhere they want at any time.

http://news.antiwar.com/2016/01/04/taliban-suicide-bombing-wounds-30-civilians-in-afghan-capital/

Car Bomb Explodes Near Afghan International Airport in Kabul

10:45 04.01.2016(updated 11:25 04.01.2016) Get short URL
 
A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car near a police checkpoint outside Kabul International Airport in Afghanistan, local media reported.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) —There were no immediate reports of casualties, according to Afghanistan’s Khaama Press. The blast reportedly struck as a large crowd of football fans gathered at the airport to welcome the returning Afghan football team.

A spate of terrorist attacks has hit Afghanistan over the past few days. Shooting was reported overnight near the Indian consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan, after two gunmen tried to break into the compound.



Read more: http://sputniknews.com/world/20160104/1032652769/explosion-airport-kabul-afghanistan.html#ixzz3wGPV6c60

Taliban Car Bomber Hits French Restaurant in Afghan Capital of Kabul
Restaurant Popular With Foreign Officials

by Jason Ditz, January 01, 2016

Adding to the growing number of strikes in the capital city of Kabul, an Afghan Taliban suicide car bomber attacked the French restaurant Le Jardin in the city’s downtown area, an eatery popular with foreign officials stationed in the capital.

There aren’t many restaurants in Kabul still considered safe for foreigners, and there’s one less today after this bombing, which set the building on fire, badly damaging it. Two people were killed in the attack, and 15 others wounded.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed the death toll was actually higher, and that the Taliban believed “several” foreigners had been slain in the strike. The Ghani government condemned the strike, saying it had “no place in peace negotiations.”

Of course, there are no active peace negotiations in Afghanistan at any rate, with the Taliban withdrawing after the death of their founder Mullah Omar. Since then, they’ve escalated their strikes, particularly in heavily secure areas in Kabul and Kandahar.

http://news.antiwar.com/2016/01/01/taliban-car-bomber-hits-french-restaurant-in-afghan-capital-of-kabul/

KABUL — At a ceremony inaugurating the new “Afghan Pentagon” here Monday, President Ashraf Ghani stressed the importance of building a modern military, subservient to the nation’s constitution and laws rather than to powerful individuals. He portrayed the gleaming new facility, built with U.S. funds, as the central command for that mission.

But 150 miles east, in the embattled district of Achin, news was spreading of an atrocity committed by a private pro-government militia over the weekend. After Islamic State forces captured and beheaded four of its members, Afghan officials reported, the militia retaliated by decapitating four Islamic State prisoners, later placing their heads on piles of stones along a main road.

The incident echoed the worst abuses of Afghanistan’s civil war two decades ago and raised fears that tribal strongmen, goaded by barbaric opponents, could undercut the Ghani government’s efforts to wage a professional fight against Taliban and Islamic State insurgents.

On Monday, Zahir Qadir, a tribal leader and deputy speaker of the Afghan senate, denied that the militiamen involved report to him. He has previously boasted that he has armed 200 men to fight “on the front lines” of the battle with Taliban and Islamic State forces in the province where the beheadings took place. ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/beheadings-send-a-chill-through-afghanistan/2015/12/29/9808f790-ada1-11e5-b281-43c0b56f61fa_story.html

Obama Haunted by Graveyard of Empires

Finian CUNNINGHAM | 29.12.2015 | 00:00
 

US President Barack Obama has little to cheer about during his annual Christmas vacation – just as America’s longest-ever overseas war – in Afghanistan – flares up with no end in sight, and possibly for even more years to come.

«The war in Afghanistan follows Obama to his vacation in Hawaii», was how the Washington Post described the despondent outlook for the US-backed regime in Kabul, increasingly assailed by Taliban militants. Fourteen years after going into Afghanistan to crush the radical Islamist Taliban and «install democracy», Washington’s «nation-building» project lies in abject ruins.

A year after the US-led NATO occupation of Afghanistan was officially wound down, it is reported that American and British Special Forces are being dispatched – again – to help prevent the Western-installed regime from falling to Taliban insurgents.

Six US soldiers were killed when a Taliban suicide bomber drove his motorcycle into their patrol near the giant military base at Bagram. The base at Bagram is the heart of US military operations in Afghanistan. In recent months even this supposedly secure zone has come under rocket attacks from the Taliban. The devastating blow to a US patrol outside the base only serves to underline how fragile the situation is for the entire country.



Poignantly, the US troop deaths come at a time that Obama had promised would mark the final drawdown of military operations in the country – more than 14 years after the US invaded Afghanistan back in October 2001.

Last December, Obama announced the official end of US combat operations in Afghanistan, along with supporting British and other NATO forces. This month was supposed to see a large cohort of the remaining 9,000 US troops being withdrawn, as NATO-trained Afghan soldiers and police under the control of President Ashraf Ghani were to take over all security responsibilities.

The remaining US troops are said to be in a «non-combat role» and are there, officially, to train and advise Afghan security forces. But that official «non-combat» designation will hardly make much sense to the American families of the six soldiers killed last week.

Due to the rapidly deteriorating security situation across Afghanistan amid a surge in Taliban advances over recent months, Washington is having to postpone its troop withdrawal until 2017 and possibly beyond. That’s when Obama’s second presidential term expires.

Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand is feared to be on the brink of Taliban military takeover, adding to gains already made by the militants in the west, north and east of the country. The beleaguered central government in Kabul propped up by Washington appears to be spinning out of control.

One Afghan provincial lawmaker quoted by the Guardian said that the entire Helmand province was «in danger of falling to the Taliban». She said: «If the British and American forces do not help… Helmand will be in danger».

Obama was first elected in 2008 partly on the promise that he would end the Afghan war, which his predecessor George Bush had started, allegedly in response to the 9/11 terror attacks on New York and Washington DC in 2001. Two administrations later, Obama’s promise looks pathetically far from being fulfilled. As with Iraq, Obama is sending troops back into the country, albeit on a much smaller scale than when the wars were officially on.

Whether officially «on» or «off», the facts on the ground are that America is very much still at war in both Afghanistan and Iraq, trying to shore up local governments that it installed but which are battling to contain the sectarian and tribal chaos that Washington unleashed by its unlawful interventions.

From a financial perspective, both wars are reckoned to have racked up $6 trillion of the total US national debt of $18-19 trillion, according to a Harvard University study. That’s a third of the US’ unsustainable debt pile, which is not only crippling the US economy, it is also attributed as a main cause of stagnation in the world economy.

But even more damaging to US global reputation is the horrendous loss of human life from wars that were illegal in the first place – and wars that are continuing with no end in sight because of Washington’s geopolitical vandalism.

Moreover, the global contamination of extremism and terrorism from groups like Al-Nusra, Ahrar ash-Shams, the so-called Islamic State and Boko Haram can all be traced to the illegal US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Whatever moral authority the United States may once have projected to the rest of the world has been squandered. The world is no longer enthrall to the post-Second World War Pax Americana; it is appalled by it.

Geographically and climatically inhospitable, Afghanistan is not called the «graveyard of empires» by historians for nothing. In centuries past, the warrior tribal people of that remote country have laid waste to the military forces of Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great and the British Empire. Russia’s decade-old war in Afghanistan (1979-1989) against Mujahideen – mobilized and weaponized by the American CIA it has to be said – is reckoned to have played a part in the demise of the Soviet Union.

Now it would appear to be America’s turn for the graveyard, with rich irony and not a little poetic justice, given how it was Washington that laid the Afghan trap for the Soviet Union – or as former US planner Zbigniew Brzezinski reputedly once said «to give the Soviets their Vietnam».



The difference is that the US has aggravated the notorious traditional resistance of Afghanistan by having introduced new strains of terrorism into the country during the 1980s to fight against the Soviet Union. British military intelligence and Saudi oil money also had a hand in stirring the terror cauldron.

Those US-backed Mujahideen fighters are the precursors of today’s Taliban, who are dragging Washington into a seemingly never-ending quagmire. And not only the Taliban but other Al-Qaeda-linked terror groups that spilled over from the Afghan terror cauldron, and who are running amok in the Middle East and in many parts of Africa.

Obama is not just being haunted by the graveyard of empires. America has dug its own grave.

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/12/29/obama-haunted-graveyard-empires.html

I think it´s very real and I think that the world is in big trouble already. Problem is; most people don´t really want to hear about it especially since they´re not interested in going after the root cause of the thing. Doing so would wreak havoc with their indoctrinated goodness and fairness and tolerance towards all. Of course these are very desirable qualities that certainly should win out in the end but as of now they are weaknesses used by this enemy to his advantage.

It has always been difficult with this terrorist shit to figure out what is hype and what is real, we remember that from al-Queida (which is still very much alive and kicking BTW and even being promoted as "moderate opposition" by lunatics both sides of the Atlantic) but ISIS seems to be on a new level as that business model is concerned. And what I find especially scary is that this is being led by young people and their opposition (our leaders) well they are old men. They are dinosaurs that most of all are interested in maintaining this cozy system of exploitation of the many by the few that we see around us. And they have their hands full as it is doing that. They will not want to talk about root causes of terrorism too much or any root causes for that matter. Doing so might start to rock the boat close to home after all.

The Pakistanis have their own reasons for supporting the Taliban and the other rebels in Afghanistan. They have been fomenting unrest there for the past many decades, even before the Soviets started their intervention in Afghanistan. Afghanistan want to annex the Pashtun majority regions of Pakistan (especially the FATA and the NWFP) to their country, while the Pakis want to annex the South-eastern parts of Afghanistan. It is an ethnically diverse area, and the conflict will go on for many more decades.

Perhaps it's better to start building some huge concrete walls on the borders of Europe right now, however if the IS can destabilize Pakistan then the whole world will be in trouble. That would mean a war against Pakistan just for securing her nuclear weapons before the IS would do that.

It´s one huge stinking racket. There´s never any realistic plan or strategy, most likely because it´s never much of a requirement to begin with. They´re always winning and then the wars drag on and America has become famous for losing the wars she "wins". But of course there are very big winners. The longer the scams last, the bigger the wins. Trust me, some people will be saying this same in 2030. Or maybe not, it staggers belief that both the population and soldiers will tolerate this scammy system that long. Maybe the tipping point is close, one can always hope.

Afghanistan ‘a disaster from start to finish,’ says war veteran as Taliban advance in Helmand

Published time: 21 Dec, 2015 17:17
Edited time: 21 Dec, 2015 19:43

Taliban fighters have retaken vast areas of Afghanistan’s Helmand province, where hundreds of British soldiers were killed or injured at the height of the war. RT asked a veteran of the conflict whether the sacrifice was worth it.

“If Helmand falls it will be a huge blow to us all, to all the men and women that fought there and to the friends and family of those who died,” former Royal Marine Ben Wright told RT.

Wright, who served in Afghanistan, had his vehicle blown up by a roadside bomb. His fears appear well-founded.

The last six months have seen key areas of Helmand, in the south of the country, return to the grip of a resurgent Taliban.

Places which became household names during the height of the British occupation have again become the scenes of fierce battles between government forces and insurgents.

The iconic Kajaki dam, the area around the town of Lashkar Gah and now Sangin, which was once seen as the most dangerous place for British soldiers to operate and where Wright briefly served, all appear to be within the Islamist group’s grasp.

In the north, the strategic city of Kunduz was controlled by the Taliban for several days in September before its militants were driven back.

“The cost of this conflict has been monumental,” Wright said. “Not only for the men and women with life changing injuries, but for the thousands that are suffering the turmoil of living with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).”

As well as 456 UK personnel killed, and many more terribly wounded, reports indicate that in 2015 alone 2,000 members of the Afghan security forces have been killed.

The UK combat mission officially ended in October 2014, after which the Afghan army and police took over after years of training.Foreign troops remained, but in a purely observational role.

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that US and UK Special Forces troops had been sent into the province in a desperate bid to support local forces.

On Monday, Deputy Governor Mohammad Jan Rasulyar posted a desperate plea to President Ashraf Ghani on Facebook
Rasulyar said 90 Afghan security personnel had died in the past month.

He told Ghani: “Your Excellency, Facebook is not the right forum for speaking with you, but as my voice hasn’t been heard by you I don’t know what else to do.

“Please save Helmand from tragedy. Ignore those liars who are telling you that Helmand is secure,” he urged.

For Ben Wright, the greatest fear is that the ‘disaster’ of the Afghan war will slip from the history books.

“Just feel this war was a disaster from start to finish,” he said. “We owe it to those who died to not let it be brushed under the carpet.”

https://www.rt.com/uk/326690-helmand-taliban-british-soldiers/

Pakistan is aid and comfort to the Taliban, allowing them to regroup and resupply within their borders. The Pakistani special service is also training the insurgents who then return to Afghanistan to terrorize. Until the military in Pakistan shut down the Taliban camps within Pakistan and begin to attack and defeat the Taliban within Pakistan, the insurgency will NEVER be defeated.

Well, the commander in chief of the armed forces, soldier numero uno, Imperator, the head honcho

doesn´t have the slightest military experience and there are no indications that he has either brains for or any clue whatsoever about military doctrine, strategy etc. And of course he collects around him yes-men that tell him what he wants to hear and so maintain for him  the illusion that he´s worth anything in this position. This has been absolutely clear about U.S. presidents for at least the last 25 years and their bankrupt command should be plain for all to see. Look at the results.

During the soviet intervention of Afghanistan, at least the red army was able to secure the major cities, although the rural areas were mostly controlled by the Mujaheddin. Now the Americans doesn't seems to be having any control over the situation, be it in the major cities or be it in the rural areas of the South and the East.

Anyway, I tend to think that if insurgents can fire rockets at the center of the capital of what you´re supposed to be occupying, your forces there probably aren´t worth jackshit. As if that wasn´t painfully obvious years ago.

--------------------------------------

Three explosions shook the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, near key ministries, embassies and residences. The attack comes hours after six NATO soldiers were killed near Bagram air base amidst a surge in Taliban violence.
Local police told Reuters that one of the missiles hit Massoud Square, adjacent to the well-fortified US embassy, and another landed in Shirpur Square, close to the sprawling presidential complex. A third rocket detonated further away from the heart of the city. RT.COM

Yeah, these are also losses although they may live. Now; as we know the nutcases in charge of this so-called war on terror plan to carry it on for decades or a century, at least that´s what they´ve been bragging about since 9/11. But I wonder how long morale will hold up both in the military and the home front. I´m sure it´s at a pretty low point already after "only" 14 years. The more they fight the more terrorism balloons. It must be pretty disheartening.

For every American soldier who loses his life in Afghanistan, there are several others who are maimed or blinded as a result of the injuries they suffer in the battle field. And there are countless others who suffer from Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The rehabilitation of these handicapped veterans is putting a huge strain on the American military budget.

It always matters if you lose combat troops. And I very much doubt that US/NATO have that much of those in Afghanistan. They´re very well set up with potato peelers and other service and support staff though I´m sure. Militaries usually are.

3 here , 5 there ( killed, or wounded ) is part of any occupation/ war. It matters only for the families of the soldiers.
The principal enemy of the NATO policy in Afghanistan is TIME and more TIME and impasse on the ground, no end of the resistance, no " stability ", no productive settlement .
Money spent, but nothing returned at least to the taxpayers.

6 US Troops Killed in Afghanistan Suicide Bombing, Official Says

Fox News | Dec 21, 2015
A suicide bombing near Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan killed six U.S. troops and wounded two other Americans and an interpreter, a senior U.S. defense official confirms to Fox News.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing, which was the largest attack on foreign troops in Afghanistan since August.

It happened at around 1.30 p.m. local time in the vicinity of Bagram, the largest U.S. military facility in Afghanistan, according to U.S. Army Brig. Gen William Shoffner.

Mohammad Asim Asim, governor of Parwan province, where Bagram is located, said the bomber rammed an explosives-laden motorcycle into a combined NATO-Afghan foot patrol as it moved through a village close to the base, which is 28 miles north of Kabul.

It is the first major attack on a NATO military convoy since August 22, when three American contractors with the RS base were killed in a suicide attack on their convoy in Kabul. On August 7 and 8, Kabul was the scene of three insurgent attacks within 24 hours that left at least 35 people dead. One of the attacks, on a U.S. special operations forces base outside Kabul left one U.S soldier and eight Afghan civilian contractors dead.

Monday's attack came as Taliban gunmen and government forces battled for control of a strategic district in the southern province of Helmand after it was overrun by Taliban insurgents, delivering a serious blow to government forces.

Mohammad Jan Rasulyar, Helmand's deputy governor, said insurgents took control of Sangin district on Sunday. Only Afghan army facilities in the district had not been taken by the insurgents, he said. Casualties among Afghan security forces were high, he added, though he gave no figures.

Afghan Army commandoes and special forces had arrived in Sangin to push a counter-offensive, the Defense Ministry spokesman, Dawlat Waziri, said. He told reporters the Afghan air force had conducted 160 combat and transport flights over Sangin in the past 48 hours.

Among the insurgent forces in Helmand, "three out of 10 are foreign fighters," he said, adding that they included Pakistanis, Chechens, Uzbeks, Arabs and Chinese Uighurs. "The presence of the foreigners in this imposed war complicates the sitaution in Helmand," he said, echoing the government line that the war is run by a Taliban leadership believed to be based in Pakistan with official protection.

Helmand is an important Taliban base as it produces most of the world's opium, a crop that helps fund the insurgency.

Sangin district has bounced in and out of Taliban control for some years, and fighting there has produced high casualties among both Afghan and international forces. British forces in particular saw intensive fighting there at the height of the war in 2006 and 2007. Britain lost more than 450 troops during its combat mission in Afghanistan, more than 100 of them in Sangin.

Helmand's deputy governor Rasulyar on Sunday took the unusual step of using his Facebook page to warn President Ashraf Ghani that the entire province of Helmand was in danger of falling to the insurgents if central authorities failed to send help.

In Helmand, more than 90 members of the Afghan security forces died fighting in the two days before his Facebook plea, with hundreds killed in the past six months, he said in his open letter to Ghani.

The head of Helmand's provincial council, Muhammad Kareem Atal, said that 28 members of the Afghan security forces — usually a reference to army and police who also fight on the front lines across the country — were killed fighting on Sunday. Another 15 were critically wounded, he said.

"Around 65 percent of Helmand is now under Taliban control," Atal said. "In every district either we are stepping back or we are handing territory over to Taliban, but still, until now, no serious action has been taken," he said, echoing Rasulyar's plea to the central authorities for help.

Important districts across Helmand province, including Nad Ali, Kajaki, Musa Qala, Naw Zad, Gereshk and Garmser, have all been threatened by Taliban takeover in recent months. Insurgents are also believed to be dug in on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.

Taliban fighters, sometimes working with other insurgent groups like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, have managed to overrun many districts across the country this year, as well as staging a three-day takeover of the major northern city of Kunduz. They rarely hold territory for more than a few hours or days, but the impact on the morale of Afghan forces is substantial.

Atal said more than 2,000 members of the security forces had been killed fighting in Helmand in 2015.

He said a major reason "that our forces are losing" was that many soldiers and police were deserting their posts in the face of the Taliban onslaught.

"There is a big difference between the number of both soldiers and police recorded as on duty, and the real number," he said, saying the official record was stuffed with "ghost police and soldiers."

The Taliban insurgency has spread across the country this year, following the withdrawal of international combat forces at the end of 2014. This has stretched government resources thin, as the traditional winter lull in fighting has so far failed to take place in the warmer, southern provinces.

The war has intensified since the announcement in late July that the founder and leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had been dead for more than two years. His deputy, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, succeeded him, causing internal ructions and delaying the likelihood that a peace dialogue with the Afghan government, halted after the announcement of Mullah Omar's death, will restart in the foreseeable future.

The Pentagon released a report last week warning that the security situation in Afghanistan would deteriorate as a "resilient Taliban-led insurgency remains an enduring threat to U.S., coalition, and Afghan forces, as well as to the Afghan people."

The U.S. now has about 9,800 troops in Afghanistan, some of which are involved in counterterrorism missions. With NATO contributions, there are about 13,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/12/21/6-us-troops-killed-in-afghanistan-suicide-bombing-official-says.html

Taliban seize control of strategic district in southern Afghanistan

Published December 21, 2015EFE

The Taliban have seized control of a strategically important district in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, just hours after the province's deputy governor warned the region was on the verge of falling into the hands of the insurgents, official sources told EFE Monday.

Afghan troops in Sangin district decided Sunday night to withdraw from the complex housing government offices in what a military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, termed a "strategic retreat."

"It was a strategic retreat to avoid more casualties among the security forces," the official said, without providing details on the number of Afghan police and soldiers killed in clashes with the Taliban in Sangin.

Hashim Alokozai, a provincial senator, confirmed that insurgents had occupied all government buildings in the district and that the death count among Afghan troops was high, although he said he could not provide a precise figure.

Afghanistan's chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, said on Twitter that he had convened a ministerial meeting "to take immediate action in Helmand" to "repel enemy attacks."

"The situation in Helmand is a priority and new measures are being taken to prevent greater instability," he added.

Deputy provincial Gov. Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar, in an open letter to the Afghan government via Facebook on Sunday, had said the region was on the brink of falling to the Taliban and pleaded for "urgent" reinforcement.

He warned of a repeat of the events that occurred in the northern province of Kunduz, where the insurgents seized control between September and October and even managed to occupy the like-named provincial capital for a few days, in what was their biggest military victory since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Rasoolyar said furthermore that, unlike Kunduz, Helmand could not be easily recovered if it falls into the hands of the Taliban because its ample vegetation makes it conducive to guerrilla warfare.

Helmand is one of the major bastions of the Taliban, who exercise total control over at least three of its 14 districts and partial control over nine.

The province accounts for nearly 50 percent of Afghanistan's opium production, one of the insurgents' main sources of income. EFE

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2015/12/21/taliban-seize-control-strategic-district-in-southern-afghanistan/

The Taliban / ISIS is in de facto control of several regions within the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA, one of the provinces of Pakistan). They have been present in these regions for the last two decades or so. Every now and then, the Pakistani Army mounts an offensive to clear them from some of the regions. But when the army pulls back, these people will once again move in.

Yeah, and one very important fact makes this all very interesting. You see; after sanctions were put on Russia, they closed the NATO northern supply route into Afghanistan. So, unless they want to supply the occupation forces by air the only supply way by land is through Pakistan and has been this year I think, maybe longer. If they need to reinvade which seems likely in the near future that is likely to be rather problematic. Mass murders by drone for the past years haven't exactly won hearts and minds in Pakistan.

Sooner or later they will fight the Taliban or they will join ISIS. It's when they make their way into Pakistan when things will get interesting

They could maybe have a political settlement in the capital. I doubt that the NATO puppets in charge have firm control over much more than that. And it´s anybody´s guess how firm that is anyway.

Political settlement? Trust me, it is not going to happen for the next 100 years or so. Afghanistan is not a homogeneous country. Two of the most important ethnic groups (Tadzhiks and Pashtuns) are arch-rivals. Then you have the smaller groups fighting each other (Uzbeks, Aimaks, Nuristanis, Pashayis, Hazaras, Baluchis.etc). And last but not the least, you have various clans of Pashtuns killing each other for the most trivial matters.

A political settlement in Afghanistan will stop IS from gaining ground. If the war continues indefinitely there is no telling how things will turn out.

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)’s affiliate in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region is effective, operational, and positioned to expand. The affiliate, Wilayat Khorasan, controls populated areas in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar Province and has launched attacks on Jalalabad and Kabul.  

Afghanistan’s security is deteriorating and will likely worsen. Taliban infighting has intensified after the official announcement in July 2015 that Mullah Omar, the movement’s founder, had died several years ago. These violent conditions will likely facilitate Wilayat Khorasan’s recruitment, attacks, and territorial expansion.

Afghanistan’s precarious unity government has not maintained effective security as international forces have drawn down. Wilayat Khorasan’s growth gives ISIS additional strategic resiliency outside of Iraq and Syria and will intensify the global competition between ISIS and al-Qaeda (AQ), which is also present in the area. The United States and its NATO allies must respond more aggressively to this threat.

- See more at: http://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/isis-afghanistan-december-3-2015#sthash.rmzQYVQW.dpuf

----------------------------

So, first they reinvade Iraq, then Afghanistan and when ISIS is strong enough in Lybia it´ll be Act 2 there. And there are other places in Africa and the M-E where this terror threat is simmering. But I guess that the usual nutjobs will want to destroy those countries first to help terrorism grow, so it´ll be worth their while to reinvade later.