Hundreds of villagers fled a southern Afghan town overrun by Taliban militants, fearful of a NATO attack on the insurgent fighters who have hoisted their trademark white flag over the town's ransacked government center, residents said.
NATO's outgoing commander, General David Richards, said that "very surgical and deliberate" force would be used if needed to solve the crisis in the town of Musa Qala.
Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said: "If there is a need for an operation, there will be one."
Colonel Tom Collins, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said on Saturday that NATO was watching the situation, but that no forces were in Musa Qala.
NATO troops pulled out of the town in October after the government and village elders signed a peace agreement.
"It is only a matter of time before [the] government re-establishes control," Collins said.
However, he said NATO had reports that Taliban militants had reinforced defensive positions.
Abdul Baqi, a villager who fled Musa Qala with family members on Saturday, said residents feared a bloody clash was imminent after the Taliban fighters swarmed the town on Wednesday and Thursday, temporarily taking village elders hostage.
"I'm going to stay with my relatives and will return only if the situation gets better," Baqi said while sitting in his pickup truck in the nearby district of Gereshk.
Resident Mohammad Wali said Taliban fighters had hoisted a flag over the damaged government compound, and another villager said hundreds of residents fled.
British troops fought intense battles with Taliban fighters in Musa Qala in the second half of last year. British forces left Musa Qala in October after elders and the Helmand provincial governor struck a truce that turned over security to local leaders.
A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said that the Taliban took over the town in response to NATO attacks he said violated that agreement -- an apparent reference to a NATO airstrike outside of Musa Qala that killed a senior militant leader and his deputies late last month.
But NATO said the Taliban had never been party to the agreement, and that "by their actions, the Taliban have ended over four months of peace in Musa Qala which, until now, had seen a return to normality with reconstruction and development getting under way."
"It is very clear that the Taliban are acting against the wishes of the people of Musa Qala," a NATO statement said.
Richards, a strong supporter of the British-backed peace agreement, said the Taliban move proved the agreement's success.
"These mechanisms to drive a wedge are an absolute classic part of any counterinsurgency," he said. "Far from being a failure, it shows what a success this can be and how upsetting it can be to the Taliban."
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