Afghanistan adrift: The Taliban is testing the nation’s military

Afghanistan adrift: The Taliban is testing the nation’s military | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

In Afghanistan, the Taliban, the persistent enemy of the Kabul government of President Ashraf Ghani, is carrying out a wide campaign of attacks on government-held centers outside the capital, in 14 of 34 provinces in the north, west and south of the country. Kunduz in the north is under siege, and severe attacks have occurred in Farah province in the west and in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province in the south. A massacre of more than a hundred Afghan soldiers who thought they were being allowed by the Taliban to escape Lashkar Gah occurred Oct. 11.