Clashes intensified on Monday as the Taliban pressed an offensive to capture a key district in Helmand, a day after an official warned that the entire southern province was on the brink of collapse.
local residents reported crippling food shortages in Sangin district, heartland of the opium harvest and long seen as a hornet’s nest of insurgent activity, after the Taliban began storming Government buildings on Sunday.
“The Taliban have captured the police headquarters, the governor’s office as well as the intelligence agency building in Sangin,” deputy Helmand governor Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar told AFP.
“Fighting is escalating in the district.” Rasoolyar’s comments come a day after he posted a desperate plea on Facebook to President Ashraf Ghani, warning the entire province was at risk of falling to the Taliban.
The grim assessment bore striking similarities to the security situation that led to the brief fall of the northern city of Kunduz in September — the biggest Taliban victory in 14 years of war.