It seems that on top of the latest fiasco for the U.S. in Syria, things are going belly up as usual in our longest war

An Afghan Police Chief Took on the Taliban and Won. Then His Luck Ran Out.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — One of the most devastating Taliban assassination strikes of the long Afghan war on Thursday killed a regional police chief with a larger-than-life reputation as one of the last stalwarts against the militants. The top American commander in Afghanistan narrowly escaped injury.

The assassination, just two days before national elections already undermined by violence, took place inside the provincial governor’s compound in Kandahar City.

In what appeared to be an insider attack, at least one gunman killed the police chief, as well as the provincial intelligence chief. The governor of Kandahar and another senior police commander were also targeted; reports about their fate were conflicting.

The police chief, Gen. Abdul Raziq, had survived dozens of attempts on his life and was widely considered an indispensable American ally with influence across critical areas of southern Afghanistan, in the Taliban heartland. A fierce commander, he pacified Kandahar Province, once one of the most troubled spots of the war, and then held it secure for years even as the Taliban gained large swathes of territory all around it.

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”This killing is the most significant military victory for the Taliban in recent memory,” said Graeme Smith, a consultant with the International Crisis Group who spent years as a reporter in Kandahar. “The insurgents’ main enemy has now disappeared in the southern heartland where the Taliban movement was born.”

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General Raziq’s death will also complicate the mission of American forces in Afghanistan.

The United States military now stands to lose a diverse network of informants capable of monitoring threats and infiltrations from the Taliban and other groups, an American military official said. General Raziq acted as a central point of contact who helped the West contend with a region awash in different ethnic and family factions. If a capable successor does not emerge, the official said, the Americans may have to deal with exponentially more power brokers in the south.

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General Raziq was the third of the last four Kandahar police chiefs to be killed on the job.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/world/asia/kandahar-afghanistan-attac...

I’m surprised this is in the NYT.