Afghanistan is repositioning forces to the south after complaints too few are involved in major US and British offensives against the Taliban, officials said today.
Afghan troops battled a group of Taliban fighters dug into a valley in northern Kunduz today, Defence Ministry spokesman Zaher Azimi said. He said fighters loyal to a wanted al Qaeda-linked Uzbek leader had entered the north recently.
With violence this year hitting its highest levels since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, thousands of US Marines and British troops launched assaults in the southern Taliban stronghold of Helmand this month.
The new offensives are the first major operations under US president Barack Obama's new regional strategy to defeat the Taliban and its militant Islamist allies and stabilise Afghanistan, which holds a presidential election on August 20th.
A convoy belonging to a minor presidential candidate, former Taliban commander Mullah Salam Rocketi, was ambushed as he returned to Kabul after campaigning in northern Baghlan and one of his campaign officials was killed.
The aim of the operations in Helmand is to clear the vast province of insurgents and hold the ground it wins, something overstretched NATO forces have so far been unable
But the offensives underscored weaknesses in the Afghan security forces, with only about 650 fighting alongside some 4,000 US Marines and a similar number of British troops in Helmand, a major opium producing centre.
Reuters