Afghan and international forces have retaken a remote district near the Pakistan border that was overrun by Taliban militants, NATO and the government said yesterday.
The militants seized the district of Barg-e-Matal in rugged Nuristan Province on Saturday, driving out Afghan security forces after days of fierce fighting.
On Monday, NATO jets bombed the region in what the alliance’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said was an operation in support of its Afghan counterparts.
US helicopters flew a unit of about 200 Afghan troops into the main town before dawn yesterday without firing a shot, military officials said. A handful of US advisers were also on hand, US officers familiar with the operation said.
They recaptured the main town in the region without shooting and no one was harmed, NATO said in a statement, though the operation was still continuing and was expected to last a few days. Taliban fighters were believed to have left the town and may have taken positions elsewhere in the valley.
“In a joint operation of ANA [Afghan National Army] commando unit and coalition forces last night at 21:50 hours, the Barg-e-Matal district of Nuristan Province was captured by government forces,” the Afghan Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Nuristan is very isolated and far removed from the main battlefields in Afghanistan’s south, with limited strategic value. But taking back Barg-e-Matal would be an important symbolic victory for the Afghan military, which is often criticized as ineffective.
“This successful operation by Afghan forces will return governance to Barg-e-Matal,” Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said in a statement. “This operation shows the improved planning and operational capabilities of our joint forces in response to serious incidents even in the most remote locations of Afghanistan.”
Up to 1,500 civilians living in and around the main town had fled or been evacuated before the operation started.
As operations in the south intensify, violence has been escalating elsewhere in the country following a Taliban threat to target people and assets associated with foreign forces and the government.
This week is thought to be especially sensitive as Afghan President Hamid Karzai is hosting a huge assembly of community, political and religious leaders in Kabul to discuss how to make peace with the Taliban.
Up to 1,600 participants are in the capital for the assembly, which is set to open this morning.
The Taliban yesterday dismissed the conference as serving the interests of “foreign invaders.”
Meanwhile, a British Royal Marine became the 223rd foreign soldier to die in Afghanistan so far this year when he was killed in an explosion while on patrol in Helmand Province on Sunday, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said.
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