- Taliban fighters attack Afghan forces in southern Afghan city
- Experts: Forging and enduring partnership with Afghanistan
Afghan officials said that by Thursday afternoon, they had beaten the Taliban back and prevented the group from entering government buildings. The local police chief blamed city officers for making deals with the Taliban, which has already taken over large swaths of Uruzgan, and abandoning their posts without a fight. Another police official accused the senior leadership of abandoning the city.
“We civilians are fed up with both the Taliban and the government, we don’t care who is coming and who is going, we just want peace,” a local shopkeeper told the Associated Press.
Uruzgan is a top poppy-growing province dominated by the Taliban and warlords. Poppy production in the province rose 22 percent last year according to the United Nations.
Taliban insurgents on Thursday were on the verge of overrunning the southern city of Tirin Kot, the capital of Oruzgan Province, Afghan officials and local elders said. – New York Times
The compound of CARE International stood like a fortress, with narrow windows, safe rooms and massive sand-filled barriers surrounding its entrances. But on Wednesday, the day after being struck by a Taliban truck bomb and raked with gunfire for hours, it looked like a defeated ruin. – New York Times
Joel (JB) Vowell writes: There is, perhaps understandably, a fair amount of pessimism about U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. Nobody wins in Afghanistan, say many analysts, practitioners, and policymakers—it’s the graveyard of empires. It’s true that all things Afghanistan have proven to be difficult for the U.S.-led NATO efforts there over the past 15 years. But in spite of those challenges—including particularly setbacks in helping to create a stable government and security environment—I remain rationally optimistic that Afghanistan will right itself. – Brookings
A Kabul defense official says Afghan forces have retaken most of a southern provincial capital that was nearly overrun by the Taliban the day before. -Associated Press
Exhausted Afghan security forces were surrounded on Friday by Taliban fighters in the capital of Afghanistan's south-central province of Uruzgan, a day after fighting off a concerted push by the militants, officials said. –Reuters