| | Afghan forces lose remote district: government AFP
08/15/2008
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KABUL - Afghan security forces withdrew early Friday from an eastern district after days of fighting with Taliban, allowing the rebels to move in and capture the area, officials said.
A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahed, claimed the government troops had withdrawn from Nawa district in Ghazni province under pressure after more than two weeks of attacks.
Interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary confirmed police had pulled out of the remote district near the Pakistan border but did not give details.
The deputy provincial governor, Mohammed Kazim Allah Yar, said it was not clear why the security forces had pulled back.
"Now the district is not under our control," he said, adding there were plans to redeploy to the area.
Mujahed said the security forces had left early Friday after days of heavy fighting, and rebels had torched a district administration building and blown up other structures.
"The district is under control of mujahedin (holy fighters)," he said.
Police on Thursday pulled back from posts in a district of Helmand province after two weeks of clashes with militants. The Taliban also claimed to have taken over that district, called Nad Ali.
The militia, which was in government between 1996 and 2001 and is now waging a bloody insurgency, were this week pushed out of another Ghazni district centre, Ajristan, which they had taken over about three weeks earlier.
They also briefly took Ghazni's Rashidan district in May.
The Taliban have captured several mainly remote districts in the past but have not been able to hold them for long, although there are a handful in the southern province of Helmand that security forces admit are in rebel control.
The rebels were in government between 1996 and 2001 when they were driven out in a US-led invasion.
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