KABUL, Afghanistan — Thousands of frightened villagers fled a district in southern Afghanistan that was overrun by Taliban fighters, as Afghan and NATO forces flew in hundreds of reinforcements Tuesday to confront the insurgents.
About 700 Afghan troops were airlifted to the main coalition base outside Kandahar after Taliban fighters moved into nearly a dozen villages in the strategic Arghandab district, a fertile swath of land just 10 miles northwest of the southern city. Kandahar was once the spiritual home of the Taliban movement.
Canadian troops, who have the primary responsibility for securing Kandahar and its environs, also were repositioning themselves in response to the developments, said NATO spokesman Mark Laity.
Local officials and villagers said the Taliban, who pushed into the area Sunday night, were laying mines, blocking roads and culverts and destroying foot bridges, apparently preparing to do battle with arriving Afghan and Western troops.
While the two sides girded for potential confrontation, as many as 4,000 villagers took refuge in Kandahar, despite their reluctance to leave their fields and farms. Arghandab is known for its grapes and pomegranates, which wither in the summer heat without constant care.
Harvest is due later this month.
“The Taliban told families to leave the area,” said shopkeeper Abdul Jalil. “We are afraid of a big fight very soon.”
A Taliban field commander in Arghandab, reached by telephone, boasted that his fighters were determined to hold their positions. He said his force had been bolstered by hundreds of prisoners who escaped Kandahar’s main prison in a Taliban-staged break last week.
Taliban fighters have infiltrated Arghandab before but have dissipated when confronted by Canadian forces. Their numbers then, however, were thought to be smaller than now.
A spokesman for the coalition, Brig. Gen. Carlos Branco, disputed estimates that hundreds of Taliban fighters were in the area. But villagers’ accounts appeared to bear out the presence of a substantial Taliban fighting force.
Control of the district, which is bisected by the Arghandab River, is seen as crucial to the security of Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city. Taliban forces control most of the area to the west of the river, where groves and vineyards provide ample cover, local officials said. On the eastern side of the river, Afghan forces set up checkpoints and enforced a curfew. Kandahar-bound refugees, many in battered cars and trucks piled high with belongings, were stopped and searched.
Arghandab has been seen as increasingly vulnerable to infiltration after the deaths of two local leaders who had helped prevent the Taliban from moving in. Mullah Naqib died of a heart attack last autumn; militia chief Abdul Hakim Jan was killed in a suicide bombing in February.
