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Related: About this forumTaliban widen offensive as Nato special forces join fight for Kunduz
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/30/taliban-widen-offensive-as-afghan-army-fails-to-retake-kunduzAfghan army also calls in US airstrikes on militants positions after failing to retake key northern city
Taliban widen offensive as Nato special forces join fight for Kunduz
Sune Engel Rasmussen in Kabul and Emma Graham-Harrison in London
Wednesday 30 September 2015 03.26 EDT
Nato special forces have joined Afghan troops in the increasingly desperate battle for Kunduz, as one of the last two government outposts in the strategic northern city surrendered to the Taliban.
The heavily besieged airport, which sits on a hilltop a few miles outside Kunduz, is now the only place held by the Afghan army. The nearby Bala Hisar fort fell when soldiers there ran out of ammunition, deputy provincial governor Hamdullah Daneshi said.
Nato special forces officially flown in to advise and assist Afghan commandos and ordinary troops joined combat in the early hours of the morning, spokesman Col Brian Tribus told Reuters news agency. He declined to say what nationality the troops were.
They also called in an American airstrike on insurgent positions, Tribus said. Although the US and Nato have officially handed over the battle against the Taliban to Afghan forces, the terms of their mission allows them to fight when they come under direct threat.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Special forces from the U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan battled insurgents on Wednesday near the northern city of Kunduz that was captured by the Taliban this week, a coalition spokesman and Afghan official said.
It was the first report of on-the-ground clashes between Taliban militants and foreign troops supporting their Afghan allies during three days of sometimes heavy fighting for control of the strategic city of 300,000.
Kunduz is the first provincial capital to fall to the Taliban since the hardline Islamist movement was toppled from power in 2001.
The swift re-taking of the city promised by President Ashraf Ghani has failed to materialize, as Taliban fighters dig into positions around the city and mine roads to prevent reinforcements from reaching weary Afghan forces.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/30/us-afghanistan-attack-idUSKCN0RU07Y20150930
Turbineguy
(37,206 posts)should just merge with the Republican party. Much easier.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)KABUL, Afghanistan American warplanes bombarded Taliban-held territory around the Kunduz airport overnight, and Afghan officials said American Special Forces were rushed toward the fighting. But by Wednesday morning, the crisis in northern Afghanistan had deepened, as the Taliban continued to surge outward from Kunduz, the major city that the militants captured on Monday.
The militants claimed critical stretches of highway and continued to threaten the area around the airport, where hundreds of Afghan soldiers and civilians have been holed up since the city fell.
Over the past three days, the Taliban have achieved what appears to be their largest military victory in a war that has gone on for more than a decade. Not only have insurgent forces captured a city of about 300,000 people the first urban center the Taliban has held since 2001 but as the reeling Afghan government struggles to respond, it has become clear that not only Kunduz but a large chunk of Afghanistans north is at stake.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/world/asia/kunduz-afghanistan-taliban-fight.html?_r=0