[Since April, when the
Taliban announced the start of its annual spring offensive, the Taliban have
threatened Kunduz, an important city not far from the border with Tajikistan.
Insurgents also seized a remote district center in the mountainous province of
Badakhshan this month, which it has held for more than 10 days, despite several
efforts by government forces to retake it.]
By Joseph Goldstein and Taimoor
Shah
During a nighttime
assault that lasted into early Thursday, Taliban fighters sacked part of the
center of Musa Qala District, according to the residents, setting a clinic on
fire and destroying government vehicles parked at a major police station.
Omar Zwak, a spokesman
for the governor of Helmand Province, said that the Taliban never succeeded in
overrunning the area but acknowledged that they had entered the district center
and set fire to buildings and police vehicles. But some residents said that the
Taliban controlled much of the district center early Thursday, at least
temporarily.
Musa Qala, in the
northern part of Helmand Province, is an important source of the opium poppy that
provides revenue for the insurgency. While the Taliban have long been active in
the Musa Qala countryside, insurgents had last seized control of
the district center in 2007, after besieged British troops withdrew
from the town.
NATO and Afghan forces took back the
district center later that year. By May 2014, when the last American Marines
withdrew from the north of Helmand Province, American commanders declared the
region largely pacified after years of hard fighting.
But since then, Musa Qala
and three neighboring districts have been plunged into violence as the Taliban
quickly strengthened their hold over northern Helmand. The Taliban have long
exercised uncontested control over Helmand’s northernmost district, Baghran.
But over the past year, it has seized a belt of territory south of Baghran that
extends across Helmand and into Oruzgan and Kandahar to the east.
In recent days, the
Taliban began a series of attacks against police outposts outside several
district centers in northern Helmand. Last week, insurgentsseized a police base about
a mile from the district center of Musa Qala, killing 17 of the 19 police
officers stationed there.
In neighboring Sangin
District, the Taliban have seized at least three guard posts from the police
this week, an Afghan intelligence official said, speaking on the condition of
anonymity.
The official said that
government forces were bracing for the Taliban to attack Kajaki District, which
is nearby. The Taliban already control most of the district and have the center
encircled and cut off from supplies.
But the Taliban’s recent
gains in Helmand, a traditional stronghold for the group, have been somewhat overshadowed
by their advances in the north of Afghanistan,
which took the government in Kabul by surprise.
Since April, when the
Taliban announced the start of its annual spring offensive, the Taliban have
threatened Kunduz, an important city not far from the border with Tajikistan.
Insurgents also seized a remote district center in the mountainous province of
Badakhshan this month, which it has held for more than 10 days, despite several
efforts by government forces to retake it.
Even so, the Taliban’s
most significant gains this year appear to have occurred in the south, in
Helmand and Oruzgan.
The attack on Musa Qala
began after midnight and lasted until Thursday morning. Mr. Zwak, the spokesman
for the Helmand governor, said that at least two police officers had been
killed in the fighting, although some residents said the number of casualties
was higher.
“The Taliban seized the
bazaar and in the morning they left it,” said Abdullah Motmain, a resident and
shopkeeper, referring to an area with several hundred shops and stalls. But Mr.
Motmain said that the damage to the bazaar was minimal, despite two shops
catching on fire in the night.
By morning, the Taliban
had withdrawn and two Afghan Army helicopters flew over the area, Mr. Motmain
said, with reinforcements arriving soon after.
Taimoor Shah reported
from Kandahar, Afghanistan.
*
CONTROVERSIAL INDIAN FILM-MAKER SEEKS POLICE PROTECTION OVER BEHEADING THREAT
Elders from an Uttar Pradesh village put a bounty of 51 buffaloes on Vinod Kapri, who is releasing a satirical film that allegedly mocks ‘khap panchayats’
An Indian film-maker has sought police protection after a
council of elders offered a bounty of 51 buffaloes to anyone who beheaded him
for ridiculing them in his forthcoming movie.
Vinod Kapri said he became concerned after three men arrived at
his studio in Mumbai late on Wednesday, one week after the council in northern
Uttar Pradesh state offered the bounty.
“Initially I didn’t take it seriously but now I have spoken to
the police,” said Kapri, director of upcoming political satire Miss Tanakpur
Haazir Ho.
The bounty was announced by the elders in Muzaffarnagar town
following the release of the film’s trailer that pokes fun at village councils
called khap panchayats whose rulings have long sparked controversy.
“There’s anger against the movie and its depiction of the khaps.
We want a ban on the movie and among many things a bounty of 51 buffaloes was
put on his head,” Raju Ahalawat, a council leader, told AFP.
The film, to be released on 26 June, tells the story of a young
man accused of raping a buffalo named Miss Tanakpur by a village strongman, who
encourages the council to order his marriage to the buffalo.
Kapri denied the film targets khaps, saying it is a satire on
the country’s deficient systems such as corrupt and inefficient police officers
and hospitals.
“We have taken cinematic liberty to include other elements
including the khap but in real-life khaps have ordered the banning of mobile
phones, jeans and chow mein,” he said.
Khaps are seen as the social and moral arbiters of village life.
Although they carry no legal weight, khaps can be highly
influential and have been blamed for numerous abuses such as the sanctioning of
“honour killings” of couples defying tradition.
Branded “kangaroo courts” by critics, they have also been known
to hand down public beatings and other punishments for perceived crimes.
