The offensive, which the 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.
Another major offensive, Operation Mountain Lion, involved 2,500 US and Afghan troops. It was launched in April in eastern Kunar province, and the reconstruction phase of that operation is continuing, Freakley said.
But the Taliban is the strongest in the south.
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."
Militants have launched more suicide attacks against coalition troops in recent months, and staged nighttime 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.
"A year ago there was one infantry company in Helmand. Now there [are] 3,300 British," Freakley said. "The enemy was doing whatever they wanted. Now we're going into areas we haven't been in before, and now there's a backlash."
Major Geoff Catlett, an operational planner for Operation Mountain Thrust, said coalition and Afghan forces would pressure Taliban militants in western Uruzgan and northeast Helmand.
Just north of there, the Hazara people -- a rival tribe to the ethnic Pashtuns, from which the Taliban draws its fighters -- will provide a "tribal backstop" for the coalition.
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