[R-G] Taliban Seizes Seven Afghan Villages

[Anthony Fenton]

Taliban Seizes Seven Afghan Villages
Hundreds of Fighters Launch Offensive Near Kandahar Three Days After  
Major Prison Break
By Candace Rondeaux and Javed Hamdard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 17, 2008; A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR2008061601512.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 16 -- Hundreds of Taliban fighters took  
control of seven villages in southern Afghanistan on Monday in what  
appeared to be a major offensive near the country's second-largest  
city, according to Afghan officials.

An estimated 500 Taliban fighters swept into several villages in the  
Arghandab district, about 15 miles northwest of Kandahar, officials  
said. Agha Lalai Wali, an official with the government-sponsored Peace  
and Reconciliation Commission in Kandahar, said the fighters surged  
into the area Sunday evening, setting up several checkpoints in the  
district. Wali said local residents had reported seeing dozens of  
fighters believed to be of Pakistani and Arab origin traveling in the  
area in pickup trucks shortly before the incursion.

The Taliban's seizure of the villages comes three days after an  
audacious prison break at a Kandahar jail, in which an estimated 1,000  
to 1,200 prisoners, many of them Taliban fighters, escaped.

A spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, Brig. Gen. M. Zaher  
Azimi, said Monday evening that hundreds of Afghan army troops were  
being deployed to the south from the capital, Kabul, and elsewhere  
around the country to mount a counteroffensive following the attacks  
in Arghandab.

Officials with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force  
said Western troops were also being redeployed to support Afghan  
forces leading the counteroffensive. A spokesman for the force, Gen.  
Carlos Brancos, said he could not confirm that the Taliban had taken  
control of the villages in Arghandab, but said ISAF officials had  
received "information that Taliban insurgents were active in the area."

Kandahar, a city of roughly 450,000 people, is considered the  
birthplace of the Taliban, and fighters trying to infiltrate the city  
have frequently used Arghandab as a gateway. Arghandab was relatively  
peaceful until Mullah Naqib, a local leader known for keeping the  
peace, died there last year. It has since been the scene of several  
fierce firefights between NATO forces and insurgents.

According to Afghan officials, Taliban fighters have said they plan to  
march on Kandahar from Arghandab.

"The Taliban are getting stronger and stronger, and after they  
attacked the prison, that gave them higher morale," Wali said.

The Friday prison break appeared to have been well planned and  
sophisticated. A suicide bomber blew up a water tank trunk near the  
gates of Sarposa Prison, and fighters used gunfire and rockets to  
launch a broader assault. Hundreds of inmates fled into waiting cars  
and vans commandeered by insurgents, according to Afghan officials in  
Kandahar.

About 350 Taliban fighters were among those freed in the raid, which  
killed 15 members of the Afghan national police force, according to  
Afghan government and Western military officials.

Brancos said that five escaped prisoners have been detained and that  
another 17 were killed during an operation in nearby Zabol province,  
to the northeast.

Last month, several hundred prisoners waged a hunger strike at the  
Kandahar jail to protest a lack of progress on their cases. In a trend  
that is increasingly common at Afghan prisons, several inmates sewed  
their mouths shut as part of the protest.

The prison break and offensive in Arghandab occurred against the  
backdrop of renewed tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan over an  
increasingly active Islamist insurgency in Pakistan's rugged tribal  
areas along the Afghan border. A day after the jailbreak, Afghan  
President Hamid Karzai threatened to send troops across the border  
into Pakistan to quash attacks against Afghan and NATO troops.

"When they cross the territory from Pakistan to come and kill Afghans  
and kill coalition troops, it exactly gives us the right to go back  
and do the same," he said, according to the Associated Press.

Karzai's statement provoked a strong response from Pakistani Foreign  
Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who called Karzai's remarks  
"regrettable" and lodged a formal complaint with the Afghan Embassy in  
Islamabad on Monday.

"In my view, the only way to win the war against terrorism and  
extremism is by showing full respect to territorial sovereignty and  
noninterference in each other's internal affairs," Qureshi said.

Hamdard reported from Kabul. Special correspondent Shaiq Hussain in  
Islamabad contributed to this report.