Taliban flee Nato forces

The top general in Afghanistan said today that Nato’s latest offensive is the first of a “rolling series” of operations against Taliban insurgents, some of whom have been fleeing Western forces in the south.

US Gen. Dan McNeill, commander of the 36,000-strong Nato-led force here, said Western troops were exchanging fire with Taliban fighters “in a number of areas” in southern Afghanistan but that many militants were fleeing the 5,500 Nato and Afghan soldiers participating in Operation Achilles.

“We’re working hard to get a beat on them, where they’re going, because we’re not going to let up,” McNeill said.

“I expect we’ll have a rolling series of exercises just like this one, operations that run through the spring and summer.

“I expect for us to continue attacking these insurgents.”

Meanwhile, five Afghan police manning a checkpoint in Helmand province died in a clash. There were conflicting accounts of who shot them.

Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said they were mistakenly shot by US-led coalition forces – a charge denied by a coalition spokesman.

Spokesman Sgt 1st Class Dean Welch said it “appeared” there was no US involvement, but that the military’s investigation was not yet complete.

A senior US military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, said it was a clash between Afghan army troops and auxiliary police, whom he accused of colluding with the Taliban.

US military trainers were at the back of the Afghan army convoy but were not involved in the clash, he said.

But Lt Gen Sher Mohammad Karimi, the Afghan army’s chief of operations, said their initial report suggested that Afghan National Army troops were not involved.

Helmand – where Operation Achilles is focused – is the centre of the Taliban-led insurgency, and also the hub of the country’s world-leading opium and heroin trade that is believed to help fund the Taliban but also profits Afghan officials.

McNeill said the vice chief of staff of the Pakistani army updated him last week on what the Pakistan army is doing to control the border area, where the Taliban train and resupply and cross into Afghanistan. The Pakistani official said locals were becoming intolerant of foreigners and had recently killed 14 Chechens and Uzbeks, McNeill said.

McNeill said he had “heard talk” and “read in newspapers” reports of al Qaida and Taliban training camps in Pakistan’s border region, but said “I don’t have any firsthand knowledge.”

He noted that Pakistan had arrested “significant” al Qaida and Taliban leadership since the 9/11 attacks in the US.

“I think that those who are derisive of what the Pakistanis are doing need to look at what they have done and there’s no question that in my view they are doing a lot now,” McNeill said.