Afghan special forces went to the Taliban to find that Reuters had melted them down

By the hand of the Danish Siddiqui

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Afghan special forces soldiers said a short prayer late Sunday night on a stretch of highway in the southern province of Kandahar. They do so every time they prepare to fight Taliban militants.

Hours of highly trained troops were called in to throw out the insurgents who had attacked regular forces and local police hours earlier to find out that the Taliban had disappeared into the darkness, leaving some wounded civilians and soldiers.

“We have received a report that the enemy has infiltrated here and wanted to demolish the area,” Mohammad din Tasir, a member of the special forces unit deployed in the Taliban’s former Kandahar stronghold, told Reuters.

The report suggested that there could be about 300 Taliban fighters around, he said.

“Unfortunately, what we heard in the report and what we saw on stage did not match.”

Tasir said the lack of Taliban fighters showed that the group claimed control of up to 85% of the country’s territory.

He also stressed the difficulty of dealing with an enemy that mixes open attacks in checkpoints, towns, villages and cities, with blows and races that tend to prevent large casualties.

The gains in recent landings by the Taliban have come when U.S. troops led by U.S. troops have fled Afghanistan after 20 years of war, leaving the country tasked with relinquishing local forces from a dire security crisis.

On Monday, U.S. General Austin Miller, who is leading the war in Afghanistan, will step down at the symbolic end of America’s longest-running conflict.

TALIBAN ADVANCES

Kandahar is one of many provinces that have been attacked by the Taliban in recent times, although he says he wants to take part in leading the country peacefully, despite the presence of foreign forces.

Over the past week the group has advanced west of the country near the border with Iran and surrounded the central city of Ghazni.

The rebels called for a special forces unit after trying to take control of the Khan Baba village in the Dand district of Kandahar, releasing RPGs and heavy machine gun fire to Afghan security forces and local police.

The soldiers went there covered in darkness, using night-vision equipment and moving in Humvee vehicles stained with bullet holes from previous missions, some of which were made with U.S. allies.

When they arrived they found the village largely abandoned. The airstrikes by the Afghan Air Force helped repel Taliban fighters.

Special forces personnel rushed from house to house, jumping through doors and walls to find traces of the Taliban that may still be hidden around them.

When the fighting started they found some elderly locals who said other residents had fled. The troops also had soldiers wounded in previous clashes before being evacuated to a nearby military base.

They were occasionally shot in the distance.

An Afghan defense official said on Twitter on Monday that 26 insurgents had been killed in operations and airstrikes a day earlier in two districts of Kandahar, including Danden.

Reuters was unable to independently verify this.

Upon completion of the operation, the special forces took a short break before preparing to receive orders for the next mission.