Dana White also denied the Taliban has the initiative and touted the fact that all six Afghan Army corps are now on the offensive as a sign of success. Except all six army corps have been on the offensive since last fall, and security has continued to deteriorate.
The Ministry of Defense identified six of the seven provincial centers that are threatened by the Taliban as Farah City, Faizabad in Badakhshan, Tarin Kot in Uruzgan, Kunduz City, Maimana in Faryab, and Pul-i-Khumri in Baghlan. The seventh city is likely Ghazni City or Lashkar Gah.
The Taliban appears to maintain the initiative throughout Afghanistan, while the Afghan military is forced to react to Taliban offensives, such as the latest incursion into Farah City.
Taliban claimed it took control of two districts, one in Badghis province and another in Ghazni. The Taliban has overrun five districts since it announced the beginning of its 2018 offensive.
Hazrat Abbas served as a leader for both al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent and the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. AQIS was formed to unite disparate jihadist factions to fight under the banner of the Afghan Taliban.
Video evidence emerging from the city shows Taliban fighters patrolling areas of the city, seizing weapons, and in control of government buildings.
The assault on Farah City should put to rest claims by the US military that the Taliban is desperate and losing ground in Afghanistan. Farah has been under threat for months.
At least nine people were killed and more than 30 more were wounded in the latest attack by the Islamic State’s branch in Afghanistan.
At least 42 Afghan police and soldiers were killed during Taliban attacks in the troubled district of Bala Buluk in Farah province. Security in Farah remains tenuous.
Resolute Support has classified the the capital of Ghazni province as government control, yet it is clearly contested, and has been for some time. In Ghazni city, the Taliban collects taxes, dispenses justice, kills security personnel, and lives openly in one neighborhood.
The Taliban overran the district of Tala Wa Barfak in the northern Afghan provinces of Baghlan. Two others have been seized by the Taliban in the past two weeks.
The Taliban is neither “desperate” nor is it “losing ground” in Afghanistan. Pollyanish press briefings cannot paper over the fact that things are currently not going well.
Afghan forces recaptured Kohistan district in the remote northern province of Badakhshan two days after it fell to the Taliban.
The Taliban overran the district of Kohistan in the remote northeastern province of Badakhshan last evening after laying siege to it for several days.
Two districts, one in Paktika and another in Badakhshan, that were previously assessed by Resolute Support as influenced by the government of Afghanistan are now at risk.
Yet again, senior American officials display a stunning level of ignorance about the Islamic State and the Taliban. Elections are antithetical to jihadists’ belief of religious rule.
US officials should stop debasing themselves by issuing facile calls for peace. The Taliban has no intention of joining a political process and as it has stated numerous times, its goals are the expulsion of US and foreign forces, the overthrow of the Afghan government, the re-establishment of the of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the imposition of its harsh brand of Sharia.
US forces in Afghanistan would be the primary target of Al Khandaq Jihadi operations, while Afghan government and security forces would be secondary, according to the Taliban statement.
The video highlights the worsening security situation in the Afghan north, including Baghlan, where 12 of the province’s 14 districts are contested and one is controlled by the Taliban.
The Taliban currently controls seven of Helmand’s 13 districts and contests the other six, according to date compiled by LWJ.
The closure of the schools highlights the Taliban’s grip on the province, where all of the districts are currently contested.
The district of Khwaja Omari was previously considered to be one of the more secure areas in Ghazni, which is a hotbed for the Taliban and other foreign jihadist groups such as al Qaeda.
Hikmatullah is part of the contingent of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan that defected and joined the Islamic State after the Taliban was caught hiding the death of Mullah Omar.
The designations are the latest in a series of moves by the Trump administration to pressure Pakistan to tackle terrorist groups that openly operate inside the country with the approval and support of both the military and government.
Resolute Support continues to claim that the Taliban failed in its strategic goals in 2017 and discounts the importance of the Taliban’s rural insurgency.
A US military spokesman also said that the military would be fine if the Taliban was operating on the Pakistani side of the border just as long as Afghanistan was secured.
The helicopter that crashed is used to conduct search and rescue as well as Air Force special operations missions.
The Taliban killed at least 10 Afghan commandos and several other security personnel during an ambush in Farah province last night.
State added Ahmad Iman Ali, the leader of Shabaab’s network in Kenya, and Abdifatah Abubakar Abdi, a dangerous Kenyan commander, to its list of Specially Designated Global terrorists.
The son of Mullah Fazlullah, the emir of the TTP, and two commanders, including the camp’s trainer of suicide bombers, are reported to have been killed.