Afghan Army Having Trouble Retaking Portions of Helmand Province Captured by the Taliban

July 7, 2014

Afghan Troops Struggle to Retake Parts of Key Province from Taliban

Nathan Hodge and Habib Khan Totakhil

Wall Street Journal

A gunner on an Afghan air force helicopter keeps watch on a mission over Helmand province on Saturday. Habib Khan Totakhil/The Wall Street Journal

SANGIN, Afghanistan—Government forces are stepping up a counterattack against the Taliban after stumbling in their efforts to retake territory seen as critical to preserving Kabul’s hold in the country’s south.

A resurgent Taliban last month amassed hundreds of fighters in northern parts of Helmand province—a hotbed in the long-standing insurgency against Afghanistan’s central government and the focus of President Barack Obama’s troop surge in 2009 and 2010.

After making little headway in an initial bid to wrest back control, the Afghan government is preparing for a broader offensive in some of the most contested parts of the southwest province.

If the central government succeeds, its control in the broader region would likely stay in place. If the operation fails, a defeat would bode ill for the political stability of southern Afghanistan.

Much of the intensified counterattack is expected to focus on Sangin district, on the northeastern edge of Helmand province, where Taliban fighters have overrun police outposts and seeded highways with roadside bombs. Sangin was a key battleground for U.S. Marines and British troops over the past several years, but most of the international forces left Helmand province last year.

"The situation is bad," said Suliman Shah, Sangin’s district governor. "The territory seized by the Taliban hasn’t been retaken, and the government hasn’t made any steps forward. The Taliban will take control of more territory."

In Sangin, lightly equipped Afghan police, including village militia outfits known as Afghan Local Police, say they have borne the brunt of the insurgent onslaught.

"Our dead were left on the battlefield for a week—nobody could retrieve them," said Haji Wali Mohammad, a local police commander in Sarwan Kala, one of the most populous parts of Sangin. "The road is closed. Nobody could cross into Sarwan Kala. The area is surrounded."

Mr. Mohammad met on Saturday with Afghan Defense Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, who held a war council with a top army commander, local officials and tribal elders to discuss retaking parts of Sangin and other districts of Helmand from insurgent control. In the meeting, Mr. Mohammad said his men had been running out of food and ammunition.

Afghan border police stand guard during a clash between the country’s army forces and the Taliban in Sangin last week. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

"For God’s sake, if you can’t help us fight, just take us out of Sarwan Kala and we will go somewhere else," he said. "I would rather die rather than live in this situation."

The fighting there claimed the lives of more than a hundred government soldiers and police in recent weeks, said Maj. Gen. Sayed Malook, commander of the Afghan Army’s 215th Corps, which is responsible for Helmand. The village of Sarwan Kala, he said, effectively remained outside of government control.

"We are now trying to conduct an operation to clear the area so we can deploy [Afghan Local Police] there and support them," Gen. Malook said. "If we don’t bring local police back there, they will attack again."

Gen. Malook said two infantry companies and one quick-reaction company have been dispatched to Sangin as reinforcements. When the troops arrive, he added, they will clear the so-called green zone, an irrigated farming belt around the Helmand River that often provides cover for insurgents.

Security has also deteriorated in Now Zad, Kajaki and Musa Qala, three other districts in northern Helmand, the Afghan general said. Afghan officials said 27 Afghan National Army soldiers have been killed and 80 wounded in the recent fighting, along with 81 police killed and 67 wounded. Local community leaders said more than 140 civilians have been killed or wounded in the crossfire, with the bulk of the casualties caused by roadside bombs.

The central government has approved 15 million afghanis ($263,000) to assist displaced families. But local officials said that assistance has yet to materialize.

The Afghan military claims to have inflicted major casualties on the Taliban, saying 241 enemy fighters have been killed and 211 wounded.

Coalition military advisers said the Afghans have made great strides in supporting their ground forces with artillery and using their own aircraft.

"This is where the Taliban started from, and [the Afghan forces] know that, and they’re fighting them—and they’re taking it to them," said U.S. Marine Corps Col. Christopher Dowling, the commander of the team advising the 215th Corps. "Over 200 dead Taliban or insurgents—that’s good killing."

He said the U.S.-led coalition had provided backup to Afghan forces, including battlefield surveillance, casualty evacuation and intelligence-sharing. Small detachments of coalition special-operations troops are also active in the area, Col. Dowling added.

The fighting in many respects is a reprise of the combat seen in northern Helmand last year. Then, the Afghan army recaptured checkpoints and outposts lost to the Taliban only after a slow and methodical campaign.

Afghan and coalition officials said government forces have done a better job of coordinating this year, but Afghan Local Police commanders in Sangin complained they haven’t always received adequate backup from the better armed and equipped Afghan National Army.

"We don’t have weapons or ammunition," said Ghulam Ali, the Sangin district police chief. "Our eight outposts were under attack last night; we have only two Humvees, and one is broken down."

Afghan Local Police units are relatively lightly armed: They typically carry Kalashnikov assault rifles and machine guns and ride in unarmored pickup trucks. Mullah Shadi Akhwand, a tribal elder and ALP commander in Sangin said the local police fight well—until they run out of resources. “Then they are overrun,” he said.

Gen. Mohammad Salim Ehsas, the country’s deputy interior minister, said his ministry would fund the recruitment and equipment of more than 950 police officers for Sangin.

Most of the casualties have been caused by roadside bombs. Mullah Shadi Akhwand, a Sangin tribal elder and local police commander, said they needed support to clear lost ground.

"We tell them [the Afghan army] to follow us," he said. "We will clear the mines, but we need you to have our backs."