It’s one of the most crucial provinces in Afghanistan – and since U.S. forces have been under President Barack Obama’s leadership, the Islamic Taliban has taken back control of nearly all of it.
Now, Helmand province is on the verge of collapse — and under Obama, U.S. forces in the region aren’t allowed to take action and help.
Hundreds of members of Afghanistan’s security forces have been killed recently fighting insurgent attacks on the main city in the country’s all-important southern province, officials said on Friday.
Abdul Majeed Akhonzada, deputy head of the provincial council, and lawmaker Sheer Muhammad Akhon put the number of soldiers and police killed in the past 10 days in and around Lashkar Gah at more than 200.
Separately, they each said 45 civilians had also been killed in the fighting, which saw Taliban militants launch attacks on at least two areas of the city earlier this week.
Akhon says 100 security forces personnel have also been wounded. Both police and soldiers fight on Afghanistan’s front lines.
Akhonzada and Akhon both say it is the worst situation the province has faced in the 15 years since the Taliban’s regime ended with the 2001 U.S. invasion.
The fighting in Lashkar Gah began on Monday with a suicide attack using a car packed with explosives that killed at least 40 people, including many police officers.
Gunmen then entered the city where fighting has continued, forcing many people to flee the city for neighboring Kandahar province, Akhon said.
He said the U.S. military was present in the city, “but they are just monitoring and doing nothing.” The Americans have a mandate to train and assist Afghan forces in most battlefield situations. U.S. military officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Taliban have been gradually taking over Helmand and officials have said they now control around 85 percent of the province.
Helmand is considered part of the Taliban’s heartland, along with Kandahar which was the administrative base of their five-year regime.
Helmand’s poppy crop yields opium that makes most of the world’s heroin. The value of the crop is estimated by the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime at around $3 billion a year.
Smuggling routes out of Helmand are fiercely guarded by the Taliban as the drugs help fund their insurgency.
The Associated Press contributed to this article
THE BIG COVER UP IS 1700 DEAD GI’S AND 17,000 WOUNDED BADLY UNDER THE COVER UP PARTY OF DEATH AND THEIR MAHDI OBAMA BIN LADEN, TO HIDE THE LOSSES FROM THE MEDIA FED GULLIBLES AMERICAN GI’S WERE CLASSIFIED AS NATO TROOPS TO BE IDENTIFIED LATER. NO PICTURES PLEASE.
BENGHAZI ALL OVER AGAIN. OBAMA AND CLINTON ARE ONE AND IN THIS MESS TOGETHER.
This is due to the great Obama Clinton team as President and SOS. Lazy with policy, anyone who is thinking that HRC is going to be tuff on terror needs to look at the foreign policy of the last 8 years. Hell we are getting attacked on our own turf again and again
WOW, POTUS what a genius – at this rate you won’t have anything to put in your library. Eight years of non accomplishments what a testimonial to a real do nothing. You can always lament over a beer with your BLM buddies.
His library would fit in an outhouse.
Sorry,you are mistaken, because it would easily fit in the pile below the outhouse!
Obummer is so weak he can’t even get his d–k up.
Marilynn – I doubt Michelle “Ma Belle” would that to go on..
Marilynn–Hill-Da-Bitch can’t get it up either!! LOLOLOL!!!!
United Nations. United against America! NATO ? Who carry the water and does the heavy lifting? Hello We do? We are suckers and our elective Ahole, most of them do not give a foook about our young men and women who are sent to these useless hell holes and also spend our tax money! Solution! 1.shut off all money and send no men and women!
…and he wants to go to war with Syria! We instigated, incited, initiated and started that war when we had no business there. We engineered the “Arab Spring” with government paid internet trolls, via the NSA. It was our proxy war to overthrow Syria for the muslim brotherhood to begin with. barack hussein obama and his secretary started ISIS there, with finance, training, arming supplying, advising with mountains of cash, our own military contractors and special forces training, including but not limited to state of the art arms and vehicles our own soldiers never had, fleets of transport and assault vehicles large and small weapons, weapons taken from Libyan tribes that made up Ansar-al-Shariah, usama bin laden’s re-branded Al-Qaida.
Tell Congress to make this pResident stay out of Syria. The Al-Qaida we trained and paid to overthrow al-Assad, in Syria are the private army barack hussein obama invented to take Syria for the muslim brotherhood. They turned on barack hussein obama and his secretary and became ISIS/ISIL/Dash when they shut down the port at Benghazi, Libya, after September 11 2012, the supply port for the US’s Syrian private war.
Keep this megalomaniacal narcissist out of Syria!
every where the yanks have been has been a waste off time and money.step down obama and go back to the cotton fields
The only way to bring balance back into the world is to vote for Donald Trump! Every war we’ve ever been in has been started by Democrats! Every time we’ve got out of a war is when we’ve voted a Republican into office! This just goes to prove that Democrats are all evil!
Democrats love war because it is profitable
QUOTE: President Barack Obama’s leadership, the Islamic Taliban has taken back control of nearly all of it.
obama has never had any LEADERSHIP. He is the most worthless President EVER!!! He is simple put, a JOKE on THE UNITED STATE OF AMERICA!!! And due to his INCOMPETENCE AMERICA will pay the PRICE in LIVES.
We can change the future in Afghanistan by changing leaders in this country. The Obama/Clinton foreign relations policy has been a disaster. On election day we can make a change. It’s time to ignore the manufactured diversions from Hillary Rotten Clinton and vote for a man who will bring a fresh perspective to running our nation.
Why have we not gone after the poppy crop and decimated it to stop the influx of money for the Taliban. At the very least it would cut off their cash cow and help rid the world of such a harmful drug. Everything Obama touches bursts into flames scent the poppy fields apparently. We NEED a drastic change in Washington. The media is an arm of the Clinton machine and bent on destroying Mr. Trump. We all knew he was not a choir boy but she would be the devil incarnate with her pedophile husband in the White House. The media will never report how she degraded women who dared to be arracked by her husband. We live in A SICK society. We need to take it back. He is our only hope! Women, wake up, there is more at stake than being offended by remarks by Mr. trump. I am a college educated woman who will vote for Trump based on his policies.
I am a college educated woman too…………………..and I’m for Trump. He’s the only Republican who is strong enough to fight the Clinton Machine and the Left Media and the Globalists in his own party. They’ve hurt him badly — but he’s still fighting. He needs us. Vote guys. Let’s take back our country.
When Clinton’s go to the White House it will no longer be referred as the White House but Whore House.
Accept Sodom and Gomorrah in Washington City.
Take 100million ÷15 for the yrs KILLARY and rapist Bill has been out of office and left dead broke and made every year out of office and you get 6666666.66667 she just maybe the anti Christ
In actuality The HIll is a forerunner for the antichrist……….. Seriously. Look at the evil in her eyes. Especially when Trump brings up the truth of her destroying America…….. She use to adore him when he was giving them money.. Now she hates him because he has seen through her evilness….. She needs to look for a country that will allow her and Bill to run to when Trump takes office in the White house…………
We should ship Obama, Hillary and Kerry to Syria and handcuff them to a post in Syria maybe they might change their minds about what they are doing if they were getting back what they are putting out. I would bet their lives on the line instead of thousands of others might make a difference.
Like I have said I would hate to have a relative in the service overseas during this administration—-you are being put in harm’s way!!!! This administration, which includes H.Clinton, has not only failed but favors our enemies with it’s actions, or better, lack of; except to allow Isis to grow, if not created, and now directly puts our homes in pearl—–no matter what he and H. Clinton lie to us about to the contrary.
I agree with every thing that people have written. H. Clinton is a liar, un-American, Obama’s Hench woman, should she be elected (Heaven forbid) it will be 4 more years of Obama. She is a power hungry person who does not care who she hurts! She does NOT LOVE AMERICA!!!!! Donald Trump has his flaws, doesn’t every one? He’ll not be pushed around, doesn’t owe any one, not a lobbyist, NO ONE !!!m I AM VOTING FOR DONALD TRUMP< as is my husband!!!
If you don’t think war is profitable, just look at Hillary s wealth, rich b democrat.
Obama should be compared to Hitler. He has his hand on the military, and has absolutely no idea what he is doing. this dumb fuck gets people killed, and does not think anything about it. This little wormy ass whore Obama I hope will live to regret his actions over the last 8 years. luckily he didn’t hurt anything when he was a Senator because he was never around. It is unbelievable that this sack of dog shit can come to the White House as a pauper, but leaves worth $200 million, and you want to tell me that our government is legal. If we were to even talk about the things that they do, we would be locked up. So this fucking little prick bastard, or his bitch wife better never talk about white privilege. I would happily start out with nothing, and 8 years later 200 mil, I would do it for 50.
Candidates like Ron Paul are ridiculed for publically urging the withdrawal of US forces from many areas in the world. It’s a shame that more Americans don’t listen to Representatives, Senators, and Presidential candidates with these views. They’re called isolationists. Too bad we don’t vote for more of these isolationists!!
I agree what a mess and that BO is totally clueless as to running a country like the USA or should I say like the USA used to be.
Unfortunately, I believe HRC will win because most people still believe in the Democratic Party and do not understand what is going on in our Nation. I hope to God that I am wrong, but if I am it will be by a very slim margin. Most people do not want to be bothered with politics and vote because they think someone is cute, etc. Jan One woman told me she voted for BO because she thought he had a cute butt. UGH????!!@!!
Does Obama want to beat the terrorists ? Maybe everything is going to plan for him, everywhere around the world he has enfeebled the war against terror, if Putin hadn’t stepped in ISIS would have been almost unopposed, just a holding action by the Kurds prevented them from taking Iraq. Afghanistan will fall to the Taliban as soon as the US pulls out completely.
Back on the home front the police increasingly have their hands tied dealing with far left agitators and BLM demonstrators, add to that there is an unholy alliance between muslims and BLM as witnessed in Texas and Minnesota, Obama/ Clinton plan to bring in 200 thousand Syrian Jihadis ( rapefugees) these could spread out and train hundreds of thousands of disaffected black gang members, I think the slow but sure destruction of the USA is going exactly to plan.
The once great USA is now but a shadow of it’s old self. Obama the purveyor of distruction of our military once proud and plenty have fallen prey to the politically correct ledership of Obama’s Admirals and Generals who don’t breath fire like Patton did. The American people don’t seem to be concerned about our military or their families who have borred the brunt of the death and carnage of both Iraq, Afganistan and now Syria. We are in deep trouble and if Hillary I can’t remember if I wiped my ass Clinton get in, we will see the final chapter of our countries heritage die. God help us, certainly the Republican party can’t. If Trump loses vote out any Rhino that wants to be reelected, don’t believe them ever again.