Den hårde militære del af indsatsen i området i og omkring Kandahar er nu undervejs skriver New York Times.
ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan — American and Afghan troops began active combat last week in an offensive to drive the Taliban out of their strongholds surrounding the city of Kandahar, military officials said Sunday. In the last several days, soldiers shifted from guarding aid workers and sipping tea with village elders to actively hunting down Taliban fighters in marijuana fields and pomegranate orchards laced with booby traps. Sixteen Americans have died in the push so far, including two killed by a roadside bomb on Sunday.(…)
This is the first large-scale combat operation involving multiple objectives in Kandahar Province, where a military offensive was originally expected to begin in June. That offensive was downgraded to more of a joint civil-military effort after the military encountered problems containing the Taliban in the much smaller city of Marja and because Afghan leaders feared high civilian casualties. During the last week of August, at the instigation of Afghan authorities, American troops supported a major push into the Mehlajat area on the southwest edge of Kandahar City, driving the Taliban from that area with few casualties on either side. At the time, military officials said that was the beginning of what would be an increase in active combat around Kandahar. (…)
Often the soldiers there run what are known as “move to contact” patrols that have no goal but to draw fire from the Taliban so aircraft can find and kill them. Last Tuesday, a United States Army platoon left Forward Operating Base Wilson early in the morning and within 10 minutes, Taliban insurgents had opened fire with small arms, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Although helicopter gunships were soon overhead to support the ground forces, the insurgents continued to fire on the patrol throughout the day as the troops made their way through vineyards and fields of marijuana plants 10 feet high.
