After Lying About Successes, Taliban Beaten Like A Drum
Allah again fails to stop smart bombs.
“ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan — After a day of air strikes and ground operations against Taliban fighters, Afghan and NATO officials claimed broad success on Thursday, saying they had largely expelled the insurgents from the strategic Arghandab region near Kandahar, killing more than 50 of them
But military officials acknowledged that an unspecified number of Taliban insurgents had escaped and a hunt was under way for fighters in hiding.
Hundreds of Afghan and NATO troops, supported by armored vehicles and helicopter gunships, poured into the area Wednesday after the insurgents infiltrated 18 villages. The influx of fighters came less than a week after a jailbreak in Kandahar freed hundreds of Taliban prisoners. Thousands of villagers fled the area and the government’s control seemed threatened amid news reports that the insurgents planned to attack Kandahar city itself.
However, Asadullah Khaled, the governor of Kandahar Province, told a news conference in the Arghandab district compound on Thursday: “Hundreds of militants have been killed and wounded, their dead bodies have been left on the ground, with numbers of light and heavy weapons.” The details of the military situation seemed uncertain.
The Taliban “do not appear to have the foothold that they have apparently claimed,” Lt. Col. Dave Corbould, commanding officer of the Canadian battle group of the NATO force in Kandahar, said in a statement Wednesday.