Afghan soldiers desert as Taliban threatens key Helmand capital

Sometimes you know a
war's going badly when your enemy is right in front
of you.
About three miles outside the southern city of
Lashkar Gah, Afghan soldiers can see a white flag.
It's not one of surrender -- quite the opposite.
The flag belongs to the Taliban, and shows exactly
how close the militant group is to the capital of
Helmand Province.
Despite Afghan government assurances that the army
can hold and retake ground, the strategic province
that hundreds of NATO troops -- who have been in
the country for the last 15 years -- died fighting for is
closer than ever to falling to the Taliban.
READ: Have we got the response to terrorism wrong?
Taliban resurgent
Those inside Lashkar Gah are understandably
nervous.
A Helmand police official, who did not want to be
named for his own safety, told CNN on Sunday that
the army had not made any recent advances, and at
least five full districts in the province were already
under full Taliban control.
The official said this included the towns of Musa
Qala and Nawzad, and that an army offensive to
retake the town of Khanisheen was recently repelled
by the Taliban.
Lashkar Gah is currently under threat from two
directions by the militant group, the official said.
The official confirmed what many analysts had long
feared: that the highly valuable opium crop, now
being harvested in Helmand, is a key reason for the
Taliban's focus on the southern province.
Even a temporary lull in the fighting in Helmand in
the past week can be attributed to the Taliban's
focus on getting the poppy harvest in, the official
said.
Afghanistan war: Just what was the point?
'It will not fall'
Government representatives strongly reject any
suggestion that Helmand is under threat of Taliban
control, or that Lashkar Gah would be overrun.
"It will not fall. If it falls, there is no doubt I will
resign, but it will not fall," acting Defense Minister
Masoom Stanikzai told CNN.
"It is not a rosy picture in Helmand. It's a difficult
fight and there are many fighters coming from across
the (Pakistan) border, there is no doubt about that."
He blamed the Taliban's recent advances on
Pakistani assistance, an oft-repeated charge by
Afghan officials.
"Why are we ignoring this fact? Go to Quetta, go to
Peshawar. What the hell are those (militant) bases
doing there? How are they moving there? How are
they communicating there?"
'A bad year'
The Afghan army has struggled in Helmand, where
U.S. officials were strongly critical of its former
leadership in the province.
"2015 was a bad year, but I attribute most of those
(failings) to failures of leadership," Major General
Jeffrey Buchanan, the U.S. forces' Deputy Chief of
Staff for Operations, told CNN.
He said recently appointed Afghan army leaders were

"phenomenal" and that "they still have a very tough
set of operations ahead of them, but I disagree
completely that Lashkar Gah is on the verge of
falling."
As Afghanistan moves into summer, and the warmer
months known as the fighting season, existing
challenges will be bolstered by extreme losses
government forces endured nationwide in 2015.
U.S. officials estimate that 5,500 Afghan security
force members died that year alone, far more than
the 3,500 NATO lost in its entire decade-long
campaign.
Top U.S. general in Afghanistan: 2016 'possibly
worse than 2015'
Deserting to the Taliban
The Afghan army is losing troops to more than death:
desertion is rife within the ranks.
CNN met two deserters in Helmand whose stories
show the breadth of the problem, who have taken
their skills -- months of U.S. taxpayer-funded training
-- to the Taliban.
"I did 18 months of army training and took an oath to
serve this country," one deserter said.
"But the situation changed. The army let us down, so
we had to come to the Taliban, who treat us like
guests."
The two men still had their old uniforms, army IDs,
and even the bank cards they used to withdraw their
official wages.
"I decided to leave the army when my dead and
injured comrades lay in our ba