Operation to flush out Taliban
2008-06-18 12:11
Kandahar - The Afghan army
launched an operation on Wednesday to drive Taliban insurgents
from villages on the outskirts of Kandahar city in the south,
the defence ministry said, but gave no details.
Nato and Afghan forces had massed troops and beefed up air
power in Kandahar this week, readying for a showdown with the
hundreds of militants dug in on the city's northern outskirts.
Some 600 Taliban insurgents took over the villages in
Arghandab district on Monday, days after freeing hundreds of
inmates in a bold attack on the main jail in Kandahar city.
On Tuesday, a Taliban spokesperson Qari Mohammad Yousuf said
militants had set their sights on Kandahar itself, the
movement's birthplace, which lies about 20km from
Arghandab.
Thousands of families have fled Arghandab since Monday,
when Nato warned that an operation would be staged to flush out
the Taliban from the district, said Agha Lalai, a member of
Kandahar's provincial council and a tribal chief of Arghandab.
Colonel Jamie Cade, deputy commander of Task Force
Kandahar, was quoted in a Nato statement as saying there were
no obvious signs of insurgent activity in Kandahar city and "it is clear that Kandahar city remains firmly under the control of the Afghan government and its people".
Witnesses said checkpoints had been set up on many key
roads leading into the city. They said reconnaissance flights
headed for Arghandab could be heard for much of Tuesday night.
Several key roads leading to major government installations
were blocked and a group of Nato soldiers stationed in
Kandahar's sports stadium, witnesses said.
Show of power
The defence ministry have flown in a battalion from Kabul
to join Afghan troops and units from Nato's International
Security Assistance Force ahead of the operation, Afghan
officials say.
Captain Mike Finney, chief public affairs officer for ISAF
in Kabul, said Canadian soldiers were backing the offensive.
Finney said no air support had been used so far in the
operation and troops had yet to sight large numbers of Taliban
fighters. "There have been only small engagements with a small number of insurgents so far," he said.
The defence ministry says that at least eight villages had
been taken by the Taliban who, according to some escapees, had
planted land mines to deter attempts to expel them.
Capture of the villages is part of the militants' latest
show of power in Afghanistan, which is suffering its worst
spell of violence since 2001 when the Taliban were ousted from
power.
The austere Islamist movement emerged from religious
schools on the Pakistani border in Kandahar in the early 1990s
and began their takeover of the country from the province,
where they enjoy support.
The militants, who suffered heavy casualties in
conventional past battles, have switched recently to operating
in small groups, according to analysts.
The latest flare-up comes despite the presence in
Afghanistan of more than 60 000 foreign troops under the
command of the US military and Nato, as well as about 150 000 Afghan soldiers.