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| Afghanistan |
| Fighting in West Afghanistan as Taliban Attempts to Capture City |
| 2018-05-16 |
| [AAWSAT] Fighting erupted in the western Afghan city of Farah on Tuesday after the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... attempted to capture the placid provincial capital. Afghan aircraft bombed Taliban positions as residents sought shelter from the kabooms and gunfire. The attack marks the first major assault targeting a city since the Taliban launched their annual spring offensive. The assault began around midnight, with the Lions of Islam capturing one urban district and parts of another, said local provincial council member Jamila Amini. "Heavy fighting ... as opposed to the more usual name-calling or slapsy... continues inside the city and aircraft have just started bombarding Taliban positions," she told AFP Tuesday from inside Farah. Afghan officials said police special forces from Kandahar and commandos from Herat ...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns... had also been deployed. "(The Taliban) will fail," vowed interior ministry front man Najib Danish, who said both Afghan and foreign air forces were taking part in the fighting. Fared Bakhtawer, head of the provincial council, offered a different picture, however, saying that several security checkpoints in Farah were overrun by the Taliban. Bakhtawer said casualties were high among security forces, but could not provide a precise number. Mohammad Sarwar Osmani, a politician from Farah province, said strategic security checkpoints around the city were overrun by Taliban and the bully boyz were near police headquarters and the governor's offices. Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban front man, grabbed credit. He said fighters launched attacks form multiple directions, after which they overran several checkpoints in the city. Farah borders Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province, where the Taliban controls several districts. |
| Posted by:Fred |