More than 11,000 troops in Taliban assault

An 11,000-strong assault is to be launched on militants in the southern mountains of Afghanistan, the biggest offensive since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

The push starting tomorrow by US, British, Canadian and Afghan troops aims to squeeze Taliban fighters in four volatile provinces. It will focus on southern Uruzgan and north eastern Helmand, where the military says most of the forces are massed.

The offensive comes amid Afghan and coalition efforts to curb the fiercest Taliban-led violence since the hard-line Islamic government was toppled for harbouring Osama bin Laden following the September 11 attacks on the US.

The force of more than 11,000 troops is by far the largest deployed in Afghanistan for one operation since the 2001 invasion. Previous offensives in the country have involved several thousand soldiers.

Major General Benjamin Freakley, US operational commander in Afghanistan, said coalition and Afghan troops would attack “Taliban enemy sanctuary or safe haven areas” in Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces.

“Right now … they’ll be in one area, they’ll move out of that area, they’ll conduct an attack in another area, then move back to a safe haven,” he said last week in an interview at Bagram, the US military headquarters north of Kabul.

“This is our approach to put simultaneous pressure on the enemy’s networks, to cause their leaders to make mistakes, and to attack those leaders,” Freakley said.

The offensive, called Operation Mountain Thrust, began on May 15 with attacks on Taliban command and control and support networks.

According to US military and Afghan figures, about 550 people, mostly militants, have been killed since mid-May in the fiercest fighting since the ousting of the Taliban.

The fighting included up to 200 Taliban rebels attacking the southern Helmand provincial town of Musa Qala before fleeing from hundreds of coalition and Afghan forces.

Conditions permitting, tomorrow will mark what the military is calling the start of major and decisive anti-Taliban operations lasting through the summer. Reconstruction projects will also play a major role in Mountain Thrust.

US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Paul Fitzpatrick said he could not recall a bigger military operation in Afghanistan in the past four years.

“This is a big operation – 10,000 soldiers over the course of a month. But this is not a beach landing,” he said. “I can’t say there will be a major battle on (June) 15, but if there isn’t, there will be in the days following that.”

Operation Mountain Thrust will involve about 2,300 US conventional and special forces, 3,300 British troops, 2,200 Canadians, about 3,500 Afghan soldiers and air support troops, Freakley said. There will also be coalition air support.

Some American forces will rotate out once the operation is over at the end of the summer, while the British and Canadians will stay on.

The offensive, which the US military says it has been planning for 18 months, coincides with a surge in militant attacks in the southern and eastern provinces near the border with Pakistan, where Afghan authorities have little or no presence.

Since the defeat of the Taliban regime in late 2001, the militants have gained strength, Fitzpatrick said. “I think this summer the Taliban is stronger than they’ve been in years,” he said.

Militants have launched more suicide attacks against coalition troops in recent months, and staged night-time attacks on government headquarters in small villages. The Taliban campaign, officials said, is intended to convince villagers the government cannot provide security, as well as to test Nato forces moving into the area.

Some of the recent spike in fighting can be attributed to the fact that there are now many more troops in the south, military officials said.