KABUL — When Taliban fighters penetrated the capital of Helmand province for the first time Monday, killing at least 14 people in a suicide bombing and related attacks, it was their most successful assault to date on the strategic southern city and opium trade center that the insurgents have been trying to capture for months.
Government forces pushed them out after several hours, and officials declared the situation under control, but by then some panicked residents had fled the beleaguered city, and the psychological damage had been done. The Taliban had not raised their flag over Lashkar Gah, but they had come awfully close.
Monday’s ground assault and bombing came two days after Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. and NATO military commander in Afghanistan, flew from Kabul to Lashkar Gah and promised worried local leaders that international forces would do everything possible to make sure the city does not collapse.
“We are with you and we will stay with you,” Nicholson told the group gathered inside a police compound, adding that Western nations had recently pledged new military and economic support to Afghanistan “because we believe in you.” Even if the Taliban keep trying to attack, he vowed, “Lashkar Gah will not fall.”
Lt. Gen. Abdullah Khan Habibi, the Afghan defense minister, accompanied Nicholson and promised the group his forces would “defend Lashkar Gah with our own blood.” Helmand Gov. Hayatullah Hayat declared that Taliban were making “a last push” to capture the city, but that “they will take that hope to their graves.”
By Monday, the public bravado had been replaced by closed-door emergency meetings and appeals for help. Hayat, while declaring the situation under control by afternoon, acknowledged that local security forces were “really tired” after weeks of defending the city against Taliban aggression.
In a telephone interview, he said provincial security officials had now asked the central government to send “fresh troops so our guys can cycle out and get some rest.”
To the elders who gathered anxiously Saturday to hear what the visitors had to say, Monday’s attack came as no surprise. The Taliban already controlled three-quarters of the province, and since mid-September they had launched a new offensive, overrunning several district centers and attacking security checkposts.
The elders knew the militant Islamists were itching to capture Lashkar Gah, where they could establish a launching pad for more offensives and move their leaders from neighboring Pakistan. They knew it would also give the insurgents much greater control over the region’s hugely profitable opium poppy trade.
