Because the Taliban continue to strike in Afghanistan
What is happening in Afghanistan? The article by Giuseppe Gagliano
At least five civilians were killed on Sunday when a mortar shell hit a taxi in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province, police said. The incident occurred on the outskirts of the city of Kandahar around noon amid clashes between the advance of the Taliban and the security forces. Police spokesman Jamal Naser blamed the Taliban for the attack.
Fighting has escalated across Afghanistan since the beginning of May.
After having conquered vast tracts of rural territory and conquered the main border crossings, the Taliban began to attack the provincial capitals.
Flights departing from Kandahar, Afghanistan's second largest city and a former Taliban stronghold, were halted after three Taliban rockets hit the airport on Sunday before dawn.
Airport chief Massoud Pashtun said two of those rockets hit the runway and repairs are underway. An official from the civil aviation authority of the capital, Kabul, confirmed the attack.
"Kandahar airport was targeted by us because the enemy was using it as a center to conduct air strikes against us," Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, told Reuters news agency .
The facility is vital for providing the logistical and air support needed to prevent the Taliban from invading the city, while also providing air cover for large tracts of southern Afghanistan.
At present, three major cities – Lashkar Gah, Kandahar and Herat – are under pressure right now from the Taliban. In particular in Lashkar Gah, the situation is dramatic in the midst of heavy fighting, while communications have been interrupted. Precisely for this reason, the Afghan elite special forces arrived by helicopter to try to repel the Taliban. Indeed, the Afghan security forces have increasingly relied on air strikes to repel fighters from cities, even as they run the risk of hitting civilians in densely populated areas.
This is the dramatic and provisional summary of twenty years of American and NATO presence in Afghanistan.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/perche-i-talebani-continuano-a-colpire-in-afghanistan/ on Tue, 03 Aug 2021 07:38:56 +0000.