 KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghan and NATO-led forces killed or wounded hundreds of Taliban on Thursday in an offensive to clear the militants from the outskirts of Kandahar city, the provincial governor said.
| Whoa! Really? But I thought the Talibs were massing to threaten Kandahar and we were really gonna get it because they're so resurgent and stuff? |
NATO confirmed in a statement issued in Kabul that Taliban fighters, including many believed to have escaped during a mass jail break last week, had been routed from positions among the orchards and farms of Arghandab district, northwest of Kandahar.
| Tree to tree fighting was supposed to make Stalingrad look like a cakewalk, or at least a kangaroo hop... |
On Thursday, Afghan and mostly Canadian forces of NATO's International Security Assistance Force attacked enemy positions, having used helicopter gunships at the start of one of the biggest battles in Afghanistan in recent years.
| When the Talibs are shrieking and hollering and waving guns back in Pakistain they're not thinking about those gunships. |
Earlier NATO had said the offensive, which began on Wednesday, was expected to last until the weekend, and it estimated some 600 Taliban fighters had slipped into the Arghandab valley.
| They were threatening a major city with a battalion? Those Pashtuns, they're born military geniuses. |
Kandahar provincial governor Assadullah Khalid told a news conference that the Taliban had been driven out, and troops were searching villagers' houses for fighters left behind. | 'The Taliban have been cleared totally from Arghandab district,' Khalid said. 'They have suffered hundreds of dead and wounded and many of their casualties are Pakistanis.' |
'The Taliban have been cleared totally from Arghandab district,' Khalid said. 'They have suffered hundreds of dead and wounded and many of their casualties are Pakistanis,' he said.
| No! Reeeeeally? They prob'ly know the Mighty Pak Army would make minced meat of them, so they took on an easier target like the Afghan army and the Canucks. |
A Defence Ministry spokesman also said Arghandab district had been retaken, and 56 insurgents killed. Azimi said two Afghan army officers had been killed and two wounded.
| Baitullah's heroes were only decimated? I'm sure the Mighty Pak Army woulda wiped them out. |
NATO said the district was retaken in a statement. 'Afghan and ISAF forces have cleared the Arghandab district and have created a safe and stable environment in the region,' it said. 'When Afghan and ISAF units moved into the area, they encountered only minor incidents with insurgents and never met or spotted the large numbers of insurgents as claimed.'
| You mean they ran away before you got there? |
The Taliban could not be reached immediately for comment.
| 'We'll get back to you tomorrow on that! Or maybe Thursday!' |
TYPICALLY TAKE BUT CAN'T HOLD
About 800 Afghan government troops, backed by hundreds of NATO soldiers, are fighting the Taliban insurgents who seized seven villages in the district on Monday. A Taliban spokesman said the group's objective was to retake Kandahar, the birthplace of the Islamist movement which seized power in 1996 and was ousted by U.S.-led forces in 2001.
| That worked well, didn't it? |
Analysts said the raid on the jail and the infiltration into Arghandab showed the Taliban's confidence was growing at a time when NATO casualties were mounting and questions were being raised among NATO member states about the Afghan mission.
| Those Talibs are really resurgent. |
Security has deteriorated despite the presence of about 60,000 foreign troops and about 150,000 government troops.
| Not that it has anything to do with the situation across the border in Pakistain, mind you... |
Major-General Marc Lessard, the commander of NATO forces in south Afghanistan, said the infiltration of Taliban into Arghandab and the jailbreak were setbacks for NATO. 'They've definitely managed to achieve some kind of tactical success, there's no doubt there,' Lessard told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.
| I understand Pyrrhus met with a certain amount of success, too... |
Typically, the Taliban have been unable to hold on to captured villages, and melt away to step up suicide bomb attacks and ambushes on NATO and Afghan forces. In January, the militants attacked a luxury hotel popular with Westerners in Kabul and in April they tried to assassinate President Hamid Karzai as he was watching a military parade. The Afghan government says some members of its own security forces had helped the Taliban mount both the attack on the Kandahar jail and the attempt on Karzai's life. |