WORLD> Asia-Pacific
Taliban take over villages near Kandahar
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-06-17 15:30

"The Taliban told us to leave. They are planting mines everywhere," said Shafiq Khan, who was moving his wife, seven children and brother out of Arghandab in a small truck late Monday. Khan reported that helicopters were patrolling the skies. "The people are scared," he said by cell phone.

Arghandab lies just northwest of Kandahar, and a tribal leader from the region warned that the militants could use the cover from Arghandab's orchards to mount an attack on the city.

"All of Arghandab is made of orchards. The militants can easily hide and easily fight," said Haji Ikramullah Khan. "It's quite close to Kandahar. During the Russian war, the Russians didn't even occupy Arghandab, because when they fought here they suffered big casualties."

Security in Kandahar had been increased noticeably. Police with rockets on their shoulders kept lookout from the roof of police headquarters, and the few remaining aid groups in town added guards.

NATO spokesman Mark Laity said NATO and Afghan military officials were redeploying troops to the region to "meet any potential threats."

"It's fair to say that the jailbreak has put a lot of people (militants) into circulation who weren't there before, and so obviously you're going to respond to that potential threat," he said.

One Taliban fighter who escaped from the Kandahar prison Friday said he plans on rejoining the insurgency.

"This is jihad," Ameer Mohammed, 27, told The Associated Press on Monday. "We will not abandon it because we were jailed."

Friday's attack at Sarposa Prison involved dozens of militants on motorbikes and two suicide bombers. One suicide bomber set off an explosives-laden tanker truck at the prison gate while a second bomber blew up an escape route through a back wall. Rockets fired from inside the prison's courtyard collapsed an upper floor.

Two powerful anti-Taliban leaders from Arghandab have died in the last year, weakening the region's defenses. Mullah Naqib, the district's former leader, died of a heart attack in October. Taliban fighters moved into Arghandab en masse two weeks after his death but left within days after soldiers moved in.

A second leader, police commander Abdul Hakim Jan, died in a massive suicide bombing in Kandahar in February.