ISLAMABAB - The Taliban says it seized control of 34 of Afghanistan's nearly 400 districts during fighting in 2015 and that most of them remain under its control.
“Over the past 14 years, 2015 can be labeled as one of the most successful and inspiring jihadi year, which was fraught with numerous significant and sometimes unanticipated achievements in its fold,” said a Taliban statement, titled “A review of Jihadi Progress in 2015," that was sent to reporters Saturday.
It says the Taliban-controlled districts are located in 17 of the country's 34 provinces, including Farah, Badghis, Ghor, Panjsher, Badakhshan, Baghlan, Helmand, Heart Kunduz, Nuristan, Saripul, Paktika,Takhar, Logar, Jawzjan, Faryab, Kandahar and Ghazni.
The Taliban described its temporary capture of the key northern Afghan city of Kunduz in September as “the most significant incident of the year.”
The statement also claimed battlefield advances in the previous year put Taliban insurgents closer to several provincial centers and “the capitals of Baghlan, Helmand and Faryab provinces remain only at a stone throw away from Mujahidin of the Islamic Emirate.”
Afghan security forces, backed by NATO, have struggled to retake control of Helmand, the province where most of Afghanistan’s poppy crops are grown. Ten of Helmand's 14 districts are either controlled or contested by the Taliban.
The Afghan government has not yet commented on the insurgent claims.
At a news conference in Kabul on Saturday, however, Defense Ministry deputy spokesman DawlatWaziri neither rejected nor confirmed growing claims being made on local television talk shows that the Taliban is in control of most of Helmand.
“We should all accept that there is a war going on in Afghanistan," Waziri said, urging critics to respect these sacrifices. "Our security forces, including army, police and intelligence personnel, are getting killed every day while undertaking heroic acts of defending their country.&aat Afghan army commandos freed about 60 people Friday night from a Taliban prison in two districts (Greshk and NahrSiraj) in Helmand, a southern province that borders Pakistan. The hostages included security personnel.
During their decade-long combat mission in Afghanistan, NATO forces struggled to keep the Taliban from its traditional heartland in Helmand.
A United Nations assessment also showed the Taliban expanded its influence to areas of Afghanistan in 2015 that had not seen any insurgent activities since 2001.
According to Western and Afghan officials, the Taliban, which controls or has a significant presence in roughly 30 percent of districts across the country, now holds more territory than in any year since 2001, when the puritanical Islamists were ousted from power after the 9/11 attacks, The Washington Post reported earlier this week.
About 7,000 members of the Afghan security forces were killed as of November, with 12,000 injured. Those numbers show a 26 percent increase over the total number of dead and wounded in all of 2014, the Post reported, quoting a Western official with access to the most recent NATO statistics.
A spokesman for NATO’s Resolute Support mission, while condemning civilian casualties in Friday’s Taliban suicide car bombing on a French restaurant in Kabul, said that approximately 6,500 civilian deaths and injuries were caused by insurgent attacks in 2015. (VoA)