NATO launches offensive against Taliban

CHRON.COM
KABUL, Afghanistan — NATO-led troops launched their largest offensive yet against Taliban militants, focusing on the same southern region where U.S.-led forces carried out an even bigger operation less than a year ago.

Some 4,500 NATO troops and 1,000 Afghan soldiers were headed to volatile Helmand province, where hundreds militant fighters have amassed. They included some 1,500 U.S. troops.

NATO said Operation Achilles initially would focus on improving security, but that its "overarching purpose" was to enable the Afghan government to begin reconstruction and economic development of the region.

The offensive "is focused on improving security in areas where Taliban extremists, narco-traffickers and foreign terrorists are currently operating," said Col. Tom Collins, the spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force. "Once the security situation is improved, we will begin short- and long-term reconstruction projects."

He was optimistic about their chances for success, even though they were returning to a region U.S.-led troops tried to subdue nine months ago in Mountain Thrust, an operation involving 11,000 troops, twice as many as in the current offensive.

The situation was "fundamentally different" this year, Collins said, adding that NATO had a much better opportunity to succeed because there were now more troops in the country overall.

British, Canadian, Dutch and Afghan forces are also taking part in the offensive, which began Monday and will focus on a northern section of the province.

An ISAF statement said that one soldier died Tuesday in the south during combat operations, but it gave no further details about the soldier's death or where it happened. Collins said he didn't know if the death was due to the new operation.

Also Tuesday, the British Embassy was looking into reports that a British man has been kidnapped in southern Afghanistan, an official said. A Taliban spokesman claimed the hardline militia had detained the Briton — whom he did not name but said had claimed to be a journalist — and two Afghans as they traveled together by vehicle Monday in Helmand province.

Afghan officials had no immediate information on the reported kidnapping.

The government has little control over many parts of northern Helmand, and the British troops stationed there fight almost daily battles with militants. U.S. intelligence officials say Taliban fighters have flooded into Helmand the last several months, and that there are now more fighters there than any other part of the country.

The militants overran Musa Qala, in northern Helmand province, on Feb. 1 after defying a peace deal between the government and elders reached last fall that capped weeks of fighting. The Taliban still control the town more than a month after the initial attack. Collins said forces would not move into the village until given approval by the government.

British troops have also been battling militants in the nearby district of Kajaki to enable repair work on a hydroelectric damn there, which supplies close to 2 million Afghans with electricity.

"Strategically, our goal is to enable the Afghan government to begin the Kajaki project," said Maj. Gen. Ton van Loon, ISAF's southern commander. "This long-term initiative is a huge undertaking and the eventual rehabilitation of the Kajaki multipurpose dam and power house will improve the water supply for local communities, rehabilitate irrigation systems for farmlands and provide sufficient electrical power for residents, industries and commerce," he said.

Helmand is the world's biggest producer of opium, and a new U.N. drug assessment indicates this year's poppy harvest could be higher than last year's record output. The U.N. says Taliban fighters protect poppy farmers and tax the crop, deriving much-needed income for their insurgency.

Meanwhile, a remote-control bomb targeting a police vehicle on Tuesday killed one policeman and wounded another in Murja district, also in Helmand, said Ghulam Nabi Mulakhail, the province's police chief.

The blast also wounded six Afghan civilians nearby, said Abdul Basir, a police officer in the district.