Sher Khan/European Pressphoto Agency
Mohammad Naim Baluch, front, the governor of Helmand Province, visited the village of Sarwan Kala last month, the scene of fighting against the Taliban.
KABUL, Afghanistan — First, the British marines tried to pacify it, and lost more soldiers there than anywhere else in Afghanistan. Then the American Marines moved in, and suffered severe casualties, before finally subduing it after a large troop increase. Now the foreigners are mostly gone from Sangin district in the southern Taliban heartland, and its fate is up to the Afghans.
The Taliban insurgents, who never completely left the area, have wasted no time testing the mettle of Afghan government forces. So far, the Afghan security forces have held, but like the Americans and British before them, the price has been high, according to Afghan and Western officials and accounts by locals. The police and the Afghan National Army, or A.N.A., are taking heavy casualties in a battle that American and Afghan officials see as a crucial test of the Afghans’ ability to keep the Taliban at bay after the Western withdrawal.
“We hope the A.N.A. survives,” said one Western official familiar with the terrain. “But it is a real test.”
The Taliban started their offensive in Sangin about three weeks ago, as part of a publicized campaign to discredit Afghan forces and show their ability to disrupt territories across the country. Though the insurgents were reported to have suffered heavy casualties at the hands of Afghan troops, at one point Taliban fighters reached villages less than five miles from the district center, according to residents and local officials. The insurgents overran at least three and perhaps as many as eight Afghan Local Police checkpoints — reports vary — that the police were forced to abandon after running out of ammunition.
Along the way, the Taliban planted countless bombs, emptying several villages and intimidating Sangin residents who already had only limited faith in the government.
When the Afghan Army arrived, soldiers pushed the Taliban back, allowing the checkpoints to be re-established. But the fight is hardly done. On Wednesday, a motorcycle bomb detonated when Afghan National Army soldiers were in the main Sangin bazaar, killing a soldier and a civilian and wounding six others. A few days earlier they launched a suicide attack on a Georgian base in Now Zad, near the border with Sangin, killing seven Georgian soldiers.
Not counting Wednesday’s attack, the Afghan Army was reported to have lost six soldiers, and the police lost 13 men over the past three weeks of fighting, said Lt. Col. Mohammed Rasool Zazai, the press officer for the Afghan Army’s 215th Corps, and Ghulam Ali Khan, the Sangin police chief. An additional 35 members of the security forces were wounded and at least a dozen civilians were reported killed, they said.
“A large number of people have been displaced and some have been killed,” said Hajji Ghulam Jan, an Afghan Local Police militia commander who took over when the Taliban killed his brother in the recent fighting. “It is hard for people.”
For now, the American military commanders who are mentoring the Afghan Army say that they are optimistic, and that the Afghan Army has basically done well. That view is not necessarily shared by villagers, farmers, rural elders or even the Afghan Local Police who are the front line in the fight with the Taliban.
Mr. Jan, who said he had been forced to leave his security post after running out of ammunition, said the Afghan National Army came too slowly and left too much fighting to his men, irregular local militia forces who have received basic training from American Special Operations forces.
“The A.N.A. is not doing enough,” he said. “The Afghan forces are not weak against the Taliban, but they are not fighting with them. I told the district government and the A.N.A.: ‘For God’s sake, don’t let Taliban into my village, Sarwan Kala. We have controlled and secured it with much effort from the Taliban.’ ”
“But they didn’t pay attention, and they allowed the Taliban to take shelter and sow I.E.D.’s, which will be difficult for us to clear,” he added, using the military abbreviation for improvised explosive devices.
Hajji Mira Jan, a member of the Sangin district council, agreed that the Afghan forces were not doing enough, and complained that they lacked support from the NATO-led military coalition. “I don’t know the reason why the Americans are not taking part in this big battle,” he said.
The Americans say they are holding back on purpose — still present in case disaster strikes but trying to leave the fighting to the Afghans. While the American commanders said they had few illusions that it would be a quick or cost-free fight, given the heavy Western losses in Sangin, they say they have been encouraged by the improvement shown by the Afghan Army.
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