WORLD> Asia-Pacific
|
WORLD> Asia-Pacific
|
|
Related
Taliban take over villages near Kandahar
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-06-17 15:30 Sarah Chayes, who runs a non-governmental organization in Kandahar that makes and sells soap and body oils, said on her Web site that Arghandab "is currently acting as the dike protecting Kandahar from a surge of Taliban presence." "And Arghandab, as Mullah Naqib proved during the anti-Soviet jihad, is a formidable place for a resistance movement to be based. Once well ensconced there, the Taliban would be nearly impossible to dislodge." Chayes said by e-mail Monday that Taliban plans for the Arghandab attack and the prison assault were "obviously long in the making." The Taliban last attempted a large-scale assault in Kandahar province in late 2006, a monthslong engagement that killed more than 500 of its fighters. That marked the last time the Taliban fought in large formations. It has since increased the use of suicide and roadside bombs, and its fighters move in smaller groups. The assault came a day after President Hamid Karzai angrily told a news conference that he would send Afghan troops into Pakistan to hunt down Taliban leaders in response to the militants crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan. On Monday, hundreds of Afghans demonstrated in eastern Afghanistan in support of Karzai's threat. Pakistan summoned the Afghan ambassador and said it would "defend its territorial sovereignty" in a spat marking a new low in relations between key partners in the US-led war on terrorism. President Bush, speaking in London, said the United States can help calm the "testy situation." Bush said the US mission remains to deny safe haven to extremists who want to kill innocent people. "That's the strategy of Afghanistan. It needs to be the strategy of Pakistan," Bush said. Britain announced it would send 230 more British troops to Afghanistan, bringing the country's troop strength there to more than 8,000, said British Defense Secretary Des Browne. He said the increase signaled an expansion of the country's mission to include greater emphasis on building the capacity of the Afghan forces. "The Taliban are losing the fight in southern Afghanistan," he said. |
