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Taliban launches huge offensive after US’ Trump-era Afghanistan withdrawal deadline missed
- Afghan security forces launched air strikes and deployed elite commando forces to fight off the offensive in Helmand
- Although the United States did not meet the May 1 withdrawal deadline agreed last year, its troop pull-out has begun
Afghan security forces fought back a huge Taliban offensive in southern Helmand province, officials and residents said on Tuesday, as militants launched assaults around the country following a missed US deadline to withdraw troops.
“There was a thunderstorm of heavy weapons and blasts in the city and the sound of small arms was like someone was making popcorn,” said Mulah Jan, a resident of a suburb of provincial capital Lashkar Gah.
“I took all my family members to the corner of the room, hearing the heavy blasts and bursts of gunfire as if it was happening behind our walls,” he said. Families that could afford to leave had fled, but he had been unable to go, waiting with his family in fear before the Taliban were pushed back.
Attaullah Afghan, the head of Helmand’s provincial council, said the Taliban had launched their huge offensive on Monday from multiple directions, attacking checkpoints around the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, taking over some of them.
Afghan security forces had launched air strikes and deployed elite commando forces to the area. The insurgents had been pushed back but fighting was continuing on Tuesday and hundreds of families had been displaced, he added.
![US Marine soldiers enter an aeroplane as British and US troops withdraw from the Camp Bastion-Leatherneck complex at Lashkar Gah in Helmand province in October 2014. Photo: AFP](https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/methode/2021/05/04/397e1096-acd5-11eb-9c9f-63ba12e765d1_1320x770_212023.jpg)
A Taliban surge in Helmand would have particular resonance, as the opium-growing desert province was where US and British forces suffered the bulk of their losses during the 20-year war.
The Afghan defence ministry said that in addition to Helmand, security forces have been responding to attacks by the Taliban in at least six other provinces, including southeastern Ghazni and southern Kandahar in the past 24 hours.
The defence ministry said just over 100 Taliban fighters had been killed in Helmand. It did not provide details on casualties among Afghan security forces. The Taliban did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The deadline has been met with a surge in violence, with a car bomb in Logar province killing almost 30 people on Friday evening. At least seven Afghan military personnel were killed when the Taliban set off explosives smuggled through a tunnel they had dug into an army outpost in southwestern Farah province on Monday.
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