KABUL: Afghan security forces and Taliban fighters have been locked in heavy clashes over the past two days after the rebels entered the capital of the South Province Helmand, officials said on Friday, because civilians rushed to evacuate the city.
With foreign troops led by US close to the full withdrawal of troops, the Taliban had made Swift territorial profits for the past two months but have not yet arrested the provincial capital.
“Since Thursday morning Taliban launched an attack from several directions in the city of Lashkargah,” said a government official to Reuters in anonymity.
Lashkargah is the capital city of Helmand, a southern province bordering Pakistan.
The official added that Afghan security forces thus, far back to the Taliban’s efforts to bring the city with the help of the Afghan Air Force, but the operation was hampered by the presence of civilians in the area.
“Hundreds of families have left the area and moved to other safe places,” Hafiz Ahmad, a Lashkargah environment where the clash was ongoing, told Reuters.
He said that those who could not move to lock themselves in their homes, and the city was wearing a deserted view as a weapon and fire artillery echoed through the environment.
A UN report this week said civilians had surged in recent weeks in Afghanistan, with many who were killed in May and June as in the previous four months.
The report did not cover victims in July, when the battle had increased further.
Abdul Majid Akhundzada, a member of the Helmand Provincial Board, said the Taliban had captured several Lashkargah areas, and a very intense fight in the area near the city airport.
He expressed the fear that the city could immediately fall into the Taliban.
The United States military commander in the region has said the US Air Force has increased air strikes to support Afghan troops staggered from the progress of the Taliban, but refused to say whether this would continue after their military mission ended on August 31.
Meanwhile, around 200 Afghanistan will begin a new life in the United States on Friday when airlift is running for translators and other people who are at risk of Taliban reply because they work for the United States during the 20-year war in Afghanistan, US officials said.