Afghan city sees fighting, residents told to evacuate

KANDAHAR: Residents of the besieged Afghan city of Lashkar Gah were urged to evacuate on Tuesday as government forces prepared a major offensive against Taliban insurgents after three days of heavy fighting.

The Taliban have seized control of much of rural Afghanistan since foreign forces began the last stage of their withdrawal in early May, but are now focused on capturing provincial capitals, where they are meeting stiffer resistance. Fighting is raging for Lashkar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province, with the United Nations saying at least 40 civilians had been killed in the last 24 hours.

General Sami Sadat, commander of the 215 Maiwand

Afghan Army Corps, told residents to get out as soon as they could. “Please leave as soon as possible so that we can start our operation,” he said in a message to the city of 200,000 delivered via the media.

“I know it is very difficult for you to leave your houses - it is hard for us too - but if you are displaced for a few days please forgive us,” he added.

“We are fighting the Taliban wherever they are. We will fight them and... we will not leave a single Taliban alive.”

Officials said earlier that insurgents had seized more than a dozen local radio and TV stations in the city, leaving only one pro-Taliban channel broadcasting Islamic programming.

“Deepening concern for Afghan civilians... as fighting worsens,” the United Nations

Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA) tweeted.

“UN urges immediate end to fighting in urban areas.”

“Fighting was intense this morning,” said Sefatullah, director of Sukon radio in the city. He said US and Afghan air force planes had pounded Taliban positions, adding fighting was ongoing near the city’s prison and a building housing the headquarters of police and intelligence agencies.

In recent days, the US military has intensified air strikes across the country in a bid to stem Taliban advances. The loss of Lashkar Gah would be a massive strategic and psychological blow for the government, which has pledged to defend cities at all costs after losing much of the rural countryside to the Taliban over the summer.