BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, 17 September 2006 — Thousands of Afghan and foreign security forces kicked off a major new offensive against the Taleban in eastern Afghanistan yesterday as a NATO-led operation wound down in the south. About 4,000 Afghan police and soldiers and 3,000 troops with the US-led coalition launched the main “maneuver” phase of Operation Mountain Fury in five provinces, three of them on the Pakistan border, the coalition said.
The operation was “not only to disrupt Taleban extremists in the region but to continue the process of economic growth and development,” a coalition spokesman said at the main US base at Bagram, north of Kabul. This was so that “governors can come in and that construction and jobs can come in ... to areas in that have been troubled by the Taleban in recent months,” Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick said.
The offensive covers Khost province, where police said a suspected suicide bomber blew himself up Saturday near the provincial capital. “A man, one of the enemies of Afghanistan, wanted to carry out a suicide attack and kill innocent Afghans but before reaching his target, bombs strapped to his body exploded and shattered him into pieces,” criminal investigation chief Mohammad Yaqoub said. No one else was hurt. Militants allied to the Taleban carry out regular suicide bombings in Afghanistan. Mountain Fury also covers eastern Paktika, Ghazni and Paktia provinces, and central Logar, which adjoins the capital.
Another operation, Medusa, was, meanwhile, winding down, an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman said yesterday. Launched by Afghan and NATO-led forces in the south on Sept. 2, it was aimed at driving out insurgents in a Taleban stronghold in the southern province of Kandahar, from where the extremist movement rose in the early 1990s to take control of the government by 1996. ISAF says more than 500 Taleban have been killed in Medusa. It admits some civilians have also died and is investigating how many. Figures for civilian dead provided by local officials range from 13 to 40.
There had been no contact with Taleban for about 24 hours, ISAF Maj. Quentin Innes said. “We are in the process of clearing IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and preparing for the return on displaced people,” he said. About 7,500 families had fled the operation in Panjwayi, about 35 kilometers west of Kandahar city, after being warned to leave before airstrikes started and ground forces moved in.
