Fierce battles killed at least 30 people across Afghanistan on Wednesday as the U.S.-led coalition readied to launch its largest anti-Taliban offensive since the Islamic extremist government's 2001 ouster.Officials said some 26 militants were slain in eastern mountains Wednesday, while a rebel ambush killed a U.S. soldier and wounded two others Tuesday in the volatile south, where more than 11,000 troops have deployed as part of Operation Mountain Thrust.
Another coalition soldier was killed in combat in the eastern Kunar province Tuesday, while four civilians died when rockets fired by rebels slammed into their house in the nearby Paktika province.
Afghanistan has been wracked by its bloodiest violence since the U.S.-led coalition invaded after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and toppled the then Taliban government for harboring Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida supporters.
In sweltering heat, U.S., British, Canadian and Afghan troops have massed in four volatile mountainous and desert-filled southern provinces ahead of a major offensive expected to start Thursday.
The push aims to squeeze Taliban fighters responsible for a spate of ambushes and suicide attacks against coalition forces and Afghan authorities. It will focus on southern Uruzgan and northeastern Helmand, where the military says most of the militant forces have gathered. Operations will also be conducted in the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar and Zabul.
"This is not just about killing or capturing extremists," U.S. spokesman Col. Tom Collins told reporters in Kabul as he announced the operation.
"We are going to go into these areas, take out the security threat and establish conditions where government forces, government institutions, humanitarian organizations can move into these areas and begin the real work that needs to be done."
U.S. troops on Wednesday built sand barriers and guard outposts around a small forward operating base in the Helmand district of Musa Qala to support the operation. Soldiers fired rounds from 119-millimeter howitzers deployed to the base's perimeter into the vast desert expanse.
"We do it so they know it's here and they know it could be pretty bad for them," said Lt. Col. Chris Toner, commanding officer at the base located 180 miles from the nearest permanent base in Kandahar.
"This terrain up here favors the defender. I'm sure they know how many vehicles we have here, that we have artillery here, but that's OK -- I know what they know."
Limited operations began May 15 with attacks on Taliban command and control and support networks. According to U.S. military and Afghan figures, about 550 people, mostly militants, have been killed since mid-May, along with at least nine coalition troops.
Suspected Taliban militants attacked a U.S. logistics patrol in Helmand with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire late Tuesday, killing one American soldier and wounding two others, the U.S. military said.
About 100 British troops were quickly air-dropped in to support the patrol and coalition air fire killed or wounded 12 militants, said coalition spokesman Maj. Quentin Innis. Another coalition soldier died in combat in the eastern Kunar region.
Conditions permitting, Thursday will mark what the military describes as the start of major and decisive anti-Taliban operations lasting through the summer. Reconstruction projects will also play a major role.
The operation will involve about 2,300 U.S. conventional and special forces, 3,300 British troops, 2,200 Canadians, about 3,500 Afghan soldiers and coalition air support, said Maj. Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley, U.S. operational commander in Afghanistan, who briefed The Associated Press on the offensive last week.
The operation is the largest launched since 2001. But U.S.-led troops have conducted large-scale operations elsewhere in Afghanistan involving several thousand soldiers, particularly in the east near the Pakistani border where Taliban forces routinely attack U.S.-led troops from towering mountain ranges.
On Wednesday, coalition and Afghan forces killed 26 suspected Taliban fighters in an attack on mountain positions in the eastern Paktika province, said provincial Gov. Akram Khelwak. Helicopter gunships and artillery fire supported ground troops and one Afghan police officer was wounded.
Taliban militants have launched more suicide bombings against coalition troops in recent months, and staged nighttime attacks on government headquarters in small villages. The Taliban campaign, officials say, aims to convince villagers that the government cannot provide security, as well as to test NATO forces moving into the area.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force takes command in Afghanistan from the U.S.-led coalition in late July or early August. It will have 6,000 troops stationed permanently in the south, double what the coalition has had in recent years.
Though the Pak army couldn't defeat them, it pushed them across the border and acts as the "anvil". Now, it's hammer time.