 | Becase the last few have been so-o-o successful ... |
Taliban fighters heavily occupy parts of Helmand province and must be confronted, a NATO official says, adding to recent indications that major battles are looming as spring arrives in Afghanistan. Violence flared yesterday as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization struck back at a Taliban leader who had broken a peace deal in a district of Helmand, killing him with an air strike.
A suicide bomber attacked a Canadian convoy in Kandahar later in the day, and a pair of gunmen on a motorbike killed a pro-government religious leader in the heart of the city. It was a return to the kind of daily incidents that southern Afghanistan witnessed in the fall, before the onset of the cold, damp winter. Insurgent activity fell sharply after Canadian troops led an offensive in September, code-named Operation Medusa, pushing thousands of Taliban out of entrenched positions near Kandahar city.
Colonel Mike Kampman, the Canadian chief of staff for NATO in southern Afghanistan, hinted in a recent interview about one of the next flashpoints: the northern Helmand River valley. "The situation on this piece of ground is a pre-Medusa type of scenario," Col. Kampman said, pointing to a map and running his finger along the blue line that runs north from the town of Gereshk to the river's source at Kajaki Lake.
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