KABUL, Afghanistan—When Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani took office, he ushered in a period of hope for the country’s traumatized and war-weary people that decades of violence would soon end. But just one year later, British troops are deploying to help beleaguered Afghan troops regain control of a strategically important district in poppy-producing Helmand Province, and many Afghans now believe the Taliban are winning.
The development came a day after a Taliban suicide bomber killed six U.S. troops near a major military base—the deadliest day for American troops in the country since 2013.
Fighting raged between Taliban and Afghan forces in Helmand's Sangin district, where an official said the district's army base was the only area that had not fallen to the Taliban.
