US military launches airstrike on Kunduz after Taliban assault on the key city

Posted 2015-09-29 13:32 by Grunt Report

Tuesday, preparing for expected street-by-street battles against the Taliban a day after militants overran the city in a humiliating blow to Afghanistan’s government.

The counteroffensive started shortly before dawn as Afghan army reinforcements poured into the area after the U.S.-led coalition launched an airstrike to help clear the way.

The fight to reclaim Kunduz — Afghanistan’s sixth-largest city and a strategic gateway to central Asia — will serve as one of the Afghan military’s biggest tests in the 14-year war against the Taliban insurgency.

It also unfolds in a new and challenging backdrop: an urban setting where hundreds of thousands of civilians are holed up in their homes.

The counteroffensive started shortly before dawn as Afghan army reinforcements poured into the area and U.S. warplanes launched an airstrike to help clear the way.

A spokesman for the international military coalition in Afghanistan said the American air attack sought to “eliminate a threat to the force.” Coalition officials did not specify the target nor whether the airstrikes will be followed up by others in a bid to regain control of the city.

Safiullah Ahmadi, a Kunduz official who is helping to oversee the government response, said in an interview that Afghan forces have already managed to retake control of the Kunduz police station, which the Taliban seized along with other major government buildings on Monday.

Kunduz police reported they had also regained control of the city prison, where more than 600 prisoners escaped during the Taliban blitz.

But Ahmadi said Taliban fighters still control large swaths of the city, which requires “a big operation” to dislodge them. He said warplanes were in the area, but “we would like not to rely on air power in order to avoid civilians causalities.”

The U.S. military still has 9,800 troops in Afghanistan, but it was unclear Monday whether any American personnel were stationed near the fighting in Kunduz, about 150 miles north of Kabul.