U.S. Strikes Positions in Afghanistan as Taliban Gain Momentum

KABUL, Afghanistan — In a clear sign of concern over the Taliban’s momentum in northeast Afghanistan, the American military conducted two airstrikes of Taliban positions in a remote corner of the country on Friday afternoon as Taliban fighters, driving captured Rangers and Humvees, quickly took over a pair of district centers.

Ordinarily, a Taliban offensive in isolated Badakhshan Province might cause few reverberations in the capital, Kabul, and would most likely not set off an American military response.

But this week, the Taliban captured Kunduz, a city of 300,000 people, in its largest victory in more than a decade.

Clearly emboldened, the Taliban have carried out smaller-scale offensives in a number of provinces across the north, including in Badakhshan, a sparsely populated expanse of rival warlords and isolated villages. Since Thursday, a Taliban force has captured two district centers in quick succession, provoking widespread concern in the provincial capital, Faizabad, that the Taliban were headed their way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/world/asia/taliban-kunduz-afghanistan.html