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Afghanistan
US troops begin combat for Kandahar
2010-09-27
[Pak Daily Times] The active combat phase of a US operation designed to drive Taliban out of districts around Kandahar has begun, The New York Times reported on Sunday, citing American military officials.

Code named Operation Dragon Strike, the push is focusing on clearing the Taliban from three districts to the west and south of the city, the newspaper quoted Brig Gen Josef Blotz, a NATO front man for the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, as having said.
While the beaters move forward in full view, the Special Forces will be able to pick off Number Threes and cannon fodder flushed out from the underbrush. They got something like 3,000 in the last three months, including killed, wounded, and cannon fodder, and that was when things were relatively calm.
"We expect hard fighting. The aim, he said, would be destroying Taliban fighting positions so they will not have anywhere to hide. The operation, backed by Afghan troops, is the first large-scale combat involving multiple objectives in Kandahar province, where a military offensive was originally expected to begin in June," it said.

The offensive was downgraded to more of a joint civil-military effort after the military encountered problems in trying to pacify the much smaller city of Marja and because of resistance from Afghan leaders concerned about the possibility of high civilian casualties.

"Winning over Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban, is considered crucial to President B.O.'s efforts to shift the balance of power in Afghanistan after the cut-throats staged a comeback in recent years," the newspaper pointed out. General Blotz said the combat phase of Dragon Strike began five or six days ago in Arghandab, Zhari and Panjwye districts, with shaping operations preceding that for several weeks.

He declined to release further details on the new operation, other than to say it involved a large number of troops with air support, and that for the first time in a major operation, more Afghan forces were deployed than the coalition ones. Bismillah Khan, the police chief in Zhari district, said the combat operation began there on Saturday, but he declined to give further details. Afghan and coalition forces are repeatedly hitting the faceless myrmidons in their backyard, allowing them no time to regroup, the general said.

No sooner had the first battalion of the US Army arrived here, five of its soldiers were killed in a roadside kaboom directed at their convoy. The dead included the first army chaplain to be killed on active duty during the Afghan conflict.
Posted by:Fred

#1  Sounds like a big-time operation. Heavy kills and safe ops for our troops, I pray. Is that wrong? Then I don't wanna be right
Posted by: Frank G   2010-09-27 20:06  

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