Flop show in Afghanistan as forces unable to retake Kunduz from the Taliban

It turned out to be a flop show as the counterattack promised by Afghan forces to retake the strategic city of Kunduz was unsuccessful. Kunduz is a city of 300,000 in northern Afghanistan and the region is one of the main bread baskets of Afghanistan – it also boasts of rich mining assets and lies on a strategic crossroads connecting Afghanistan to Pakistan, China and Central Asia.
This has been reported in foxnews.com dated 30 September 2015.

The efforts to retake Kunduz from the Taliban militants collapsed when hundreds of soldiers and civilians reportedly fled to the city's airport, where they were surrounded by insurgent forces. The Taliban fighters had fanned out across Kunduz and had closed the roads. They had also thrown up checkpoints and torched government buildings as fearful residents huddled indoors.
Obviously, the Afghan forces who tried to retake the city were stalled by roadblocks and ambushes and were not able to move closer than about a mile toward their target.
The US carried out air strikes but, fearing civilian casualties, they reverted to retake the city by painstaking street-by-street fighting.
The fall of Kunduz, the first urban area taken by the Taliban since the U.S.-led invasion ousted their regime 14 years ago, is perceived as a major setback to President Ashraf Ghani. He wants to bring peace to Afghanistan and wants to draw the Taliban to peace talks.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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