Kick-Ass: US-Afghan Military Raid Sets Free More Than 40 Soldiers From Taliban Prison

04 Dec, 2015 by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

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A US-Afghan military operation backed by helicopter gunships freed more than 40 soldiers and police held captive in a Taliban prison in southern Afghanistan, officials said Friday. This was a major raid against the resurgent Islamist group. The Taliban has been expanding rapidly in Afghanistan since we pulled out. This was a welcome win in the fight against the Taliban there. It is widely thought that Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a gunfight on Tuesday, which threatens to blow up the region and cause even more fighting. Today, 40 soldiers and police were rescued with the help of the US military. There is no word on how they were captured in the first place, but today was their lucky day.

From the Global Post:

A US-Afghan military operation backed by helicopter gunships freed more than 40 soldiers and police held captive in a Taliban prison in southern Afghanistan, officials said Friday, in a major raid against the resurgent Islamist group.

The operation conducted Thursday in Nawzad district in the southern opium-rich province of Helmand comes as speculation swirls over whether Taliban supremo Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a firefight which broke out between insurgent commanders in Pakistan.

“Afghan special security forces… conducted a helicopter assault mission in Nawzad,” the US military said in a statement.

“After securing the prison, Afghan forces freed more than 40 prisoners comprised of Afghan Police, Afghan National Army and Afghan Border Police members.”

The statement did not say how and when the security personnel were taken hostage.

It was unclear what role US forces played.

The raid marks a rare success for Afghan forces struggling to beat back the stubborn insurgency rapidly expanding north from its southern hotbeds.

The insurgents captured northern Kunduz city for three days in September in a stinging blow to Afghan forces, who have largely been fighting on their own since the end of NATO’s combat mission last December.

The emboldened insurgents have stepped up attacks on government and foreign targets since they launched their annual summer offensive in late April.

But amid their rapid gains, confusion surrounds the fate of insurgent leader Mansour, who was shot in a firefight during an argument with commanders of the divided movement on Tuesday.

The Islamist group has vehemently rejected claims by militant sources and intelligence officials that Mansour was critically wounded in a shootout at an insurgent gathering near the Pakistani city of Quetta.

But speculation about his wellbeing intensified Friday after an Afghan government spokesman claimed on Twitter that Mansour did not survive the clash, which threatens to derail a fresh regional push to jump-start Taliban peace talks.

It will take much more than this to set things right in Afghanistan if that is even possible. To quell the Taliban we would once again have to send in a bunch of troops and fight to eradicate them. Obama has undone all the hard fought wins we had there, which is just obscene. All the blood spilled and life lost to help free a country from radical Islamists and Obama undoes it all with almost no effort. We have additional troops there right now, so you may see more wins like this one. We better find a way to start defeating all these different Islamic factions or blood will flow across the globe. No one will be immune.