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British troops launch biggest offensive of summer in Afghanistan
Friday, 30. July 2010 13:22 | Section: Headlines | Source: telegraph.co.uk
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Hundreds go into action to wrest a Taliban stronghold in Helmand from insurgent control.
Troops were aiming to flush out or kill Taliban commanders responsible for attacks on neighbouring British and American troops. The small farming area around Saidabad has a population of just 6,000 people living in scattered mud-walled compounds.
But up to 180 insurgents are believed to be sheltering in the area, which hosts a shadow insurgent government. It is believed to be a rat run between Nad-e-Ali and Marjah to the south, where US marines have been locked in firefight since taking the town during February’s operation Moshtarak.
"The plan is to steal the area rather than to fight for it,” Frazer Lawrence, commander of forces in Nad-e-Ali, told the Daily Telegraph on the eve of the offensive, which also involves US marines from Marjah.
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About Taliban
The Taliban, alternative spelling Taleban, (Pashto: طالبان ṭālibān, meaning "students") is a Wahhabi Islamist political movement that governed Afghanistan from 1996 until it was overthrown in late 2001. It has regrouped since 2004 and revived as a strong insurgency movement governing mainly local Pashtun areas during night and fighting a guerrilla war against the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The Taliban movement is primarily made up of members belonging to ethnic Pashtun tribes, along with volunteers from nearby Islamic countries such as Uzbeks, Tajiks, Punjabis, Arabs, Chechens and others. It operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan, mostly in provinces around the Durand Line border. U.S. officials say their headquarters is in or near Quetta, Pakistan, and that Pakistan and Iran provide support, although both nations deny this.
