Helicopter gunships and troops with small and heavy arms blasted a valley in southern Afghanistan yesterday as local and NATO forces launched a huge offensive against hundreds of Taliban insurgents, many of whom broke out of jail last week.
Some 600 Taliban fighters on Monday took over villages in Arghandab, on the northern outskirts of Kandahar, days after freeing hundreds of inmates in an attack on the city’s main jail, according to the Taliban and an Afghan official.
Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said militants had set their sights on Kandahar itself, the movement’s birthplace, which lies about 20km from Arghandab.
After massing troops, Afghan army and NATO-led forces have now started an offensive to flush out the Taliban from the villages, while stepping up security in Kandahar city and imposing a night curfew.
NATO warplanes killed at least 20 militants yesterday, the defense ministry said.
“A group of enemies of the people was targeted by NATO air force in Ta-been village in Arghandab. Based on information received, 20 local and foreign terrorists were killed,” the ministry said in a statement.
The developments in Kandahar come amid rising violence in the past two years, the bloodiest period since Taliban’s removal from power in 2001 in Afghanistan.
Four Afghan police were killed yesterday when a remote controlled bomb hit their vehicle in the Khost Province, a provincial official said. The police had been on their way to reinforce border posts along the border with Pakistan.
Later, an abortive suicide attack aimed at a NATO convoy in Farah Province, killed three Afghan civilians and wounded 10 others. None of the Italian troops in the convoy were hurt, provincial police chief Khalilullah Rahmani said.
He said the attacker walked up to the convoy and detonated explosives strapped to his body.
A civilian vehicle was destroyed and set ablaze by the blast and several shops at the scene were badly damaged, provincial deputy police chief Juman Khan said.
Four British soldiers from NATO-led force were killed on Tuesday after a roadside bomb struck their vehicle in Helmand, bordering Kandahar, the bloodiest single incident in one day against the British soldiers in Afghanistan.
One of the soldiers was believed to be a woman.
Thousands of families have fled Arghandab since Monday, when NATO warned that an operation would be staged to flush out the Taliban from the district, said Agha Lalai, a member of Kandahar’s provincial council and a tribal chief of Arghandab.
Mohammad Faiz who had managed to evacuate his family a day earlier, was hoping yesterday to return for his belongings from the lush valley of Arghandab, which is known for its juicy pomegrantes as well as hashish production.
“I have come to see if I can take away our house items,” he told reporters at the head of Arghandab valley, as vehicles carrying foreign and Afghan forces drove along the dusty narrow road at high speed.
Afghan forces barred journalists from staying long in the area.
The Afghan defense ministry says that at least eight villages had been taken by the Taliban who, according to some escapees, had planted land mines to deter attempts to expel them.
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