With the Taliban carrying out offensives against several provinces around the country at any given time, the Afghan government has been forced to prioritize who gets reinforcements. This weekend, that meant sending special forces to the Jaghori District of Ghazni. The Shi’ite dominated district was long seen as “safe.”

That’s not panning out, however, as the Taliban are not only routing Shi’ite militias, but defeating the reinforcements as well, killing at least 25 commandos and continuing to advance deeper into the district.

On the surface, the district is only important in that it gives the Taliban a route to attack the important provincial capital, which it has long contested. It may be more significant, however, in that the reinforcement strategy is failing.

The Afghan government has been losing territory at an alarming rate, but so long as they were able to reinforce the important areas, they were able to at least somewhat limit those defeats. If reinforcements are no longer able to check the Taliban, they may be about to inflict major losses on the Afghan government.