Taliban flees Kandahar after putting up a big show

posted at 8:15 am on June 19, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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Earlier this week, the Taliban announced that it had taken over the area surrounding Arghandab, a district near Kandahar in the southern part of the country where the rebels have had success before.  That success didn’t last long as NATO forces quickly responded, sending the Taliban reeling with hundreds of losses:

Hundreds of Taliban militants streamed into several villages in Kandahar days ago, after 400 militants escaped from prison in a daring and well-executed jailbreak.

In response, NATO aircraft dropped hundreds of leaflets advising residents to stay inside and saying that troops were “coming to remove the enemies of Afghanistan.” Then military convoys rolled into the district.

Afghan soldiers and police, along with NATO-led forces, started the military operation Wednesday. At least 34 militants were killed and another 60 wounded in the early stages of the assault, Afghan police said.

“This clearing operation is a response to a direct Taliban threat to the people of Arghandab district, where insurgents have forced hundreds of innocent Afghans to flee their homes,” read a statement from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

The Taliban offensive came after hundreds of their fighters escaped from prison nearby the battle.  The assumption is that the Taliban forces came from the prison break and that they immediately used their numbers to descend on the villages around Kandahar.   This is, in essence, a police action to recover prisoners.  NATO said that they see no evidence of coordinated efforts to establish effective military positions and no large grouping of militants except for the presumed escapees.

Asadullah Khaled, the governor of Kandahar, reported that the ISAF had killed “hundreds” of Taliban, and that the dead were “mostly Pakistanis”.  Khaled told AFP that the remaining Taliban had run off into neighboring districts.  They had earlier planted mines and conscripted males in the villages by force, which didn’t help them in the least.

The prison break and the attempted seizure of Arghandab got portrayed as a major setback against NATO, but in the end turned out to be a rather minor episode of no strategic significance.  As soon as the Taliban met the military, they crumbled.   Most of what remains has probably fled towards Quetta in Pakistan, where they almost certainly will attempt to regroup with Baitullah Mehsud’s forces for another shot at Afghanistan — and will likely meet the same fate.

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