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Thursday, December 24, 2015 U.S., Afghans repel Taliban onslaught in strategic area THOMAS WELLSTHE NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI DAILY JOURNAL Phyllis Evans gets a hug from Harvey Payne early Thursday after he stopped by to check on her and her home in Holly Springs, Miss. Christmastime tornadoes ravage South, killing at least 10 By Lynne O'Donnell Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan Afghan forces backed by U.S. air strikes pushed back a Taliban onslaught Thursday in a strategically important district in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, officials said. Sangin district had been besieged by the insurgents for weeks before an uptick in the ferocity of the fight this week sparked concerns it could fall to Taliban control. But civilian and military officials said Sangin remained in government hands after the United States conducted two airstrikes overnight, and Afghan military helicopters dropped food and ammunition to soldiers and police who had been surrounded and trapped inside the district army base for days.

The presence of a small contingent of British troops, who arrived in the Shorab base formerly Britain's Camp Bastion during their Afghan combat mission on Wednesday had helped boost morale of both civilians and security forces, officials said. Overnight, the Taliban captured parts of the center of Sangin district around the district governor's compound, but the Afghan forces, bolstered by reinforcements, soon succeeded in driving them further out, said Akhtar Muhammad, a police commander in Sangin. In recent days, the Taliban assault has threatened to overrun Sangin, a major poppy-growing area in Helmand, raising alarm that Afghan forces were too overstretched to fend off the insurgency. The Taliban this week pronounced they had seized control of the district, but the claim was widely refuted by Afghan officials. As the military rushed more troops to the area, Afghan officials on Wednesday asked for the international military coalition's help, including airstrikes.

Just before midnight, U.S. warplanes conducted two strikes in the vicinity of Sangin, the spokesman for the NATO mission in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Col. Mike Lawhorn, said. Afghan planes also struck Taliban strongholds in Sangin, killing 25 insurgents and wounding another 12, said the Afghan army spokesman in Helmand, Guam Rasoul Zazai.

Operations were slowed Thursday as insurgents began taking shelter in civilian homes, he said. Mississippi to Michigan. The storms killed at least six in Mississippi, including a 7-year-old boy in Holly Springs who died when the storm picked up and tossed the car he was in, officials said. Three were killed in Tennessee and one in Arkansas. Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Flynn said the state had at least 40 injuries, some serious.

He said early information suggested a large tornado that touched down near Clarks-dale traveled more than 100 miles in a line toward Tennessee. In Benton County, Mississippi, where at least four deaths occurred and people were missing, crews searched house-by-house to make sure residents were accounted for. The threat of severe weather just before Christmas is unusual, but not unprecedented, said Greg Carbin, a meteorologist at the national Storm Prediction Center. Exactly a year ago, twisters hit southeast Mississippi, killing five people and injuring dozens of others. stroying dozens of cars, homes and businesses.

The threat of tornadoes eased as the line of storms moved east Thursday and brought heavy rain and thunderstorms to Atlanta and the Carolinas. In the worst-hit communities, search parties hunted for missing people and volunteers helped clear debris on a day often reserved for gift wrapping and last-minute shopping. In Linden, Tennessee, Chris Shupiery wore a Santa hat as he cut fallen trees with a chain saw not far from a home in which two people died in the storm. "I figured I'd come down here with my hat," Shupiery said. "I've been wearing it for Christmas, and this was just the right thing to do, come help a family in need.

Suit up, try to cheer people up, and try to make them feel a little better with Christmas coming around." From Alabama to New York, much of the country felt unusually warm temperatures in the 70s on Christmas Eve and thousands were without power from By Phillip Lucas and Erik Schelzig Associated Press HOLLY SPRINGS, Miss. Bobby Watkins and his wife huddled beneath their old oak dining table for shelter as storm winds roaring outside their Mississippi home tossed a barn onto their truck outside, tore the steeple off a nearby church and reduced a neighboring building to rubble. "Santa brought us a good one, didn't he?" Watldns said Thursday as the couple took a Christmas Eve stroll amid the destruction in rural Benton County, Mississippi. "I may have lost some stuff, but I got my life." Others were less fortunate. At least 10 people were killed in Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas as spring-like storms mixed with unseasonably warm weather and spawned rare Christmastime tornadoes in the South.

Emergency officials blamed the severe weather for injuring scores of others Wednesday and de.