ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Hundreds of Afghan and Canadian troops launched a major attack Wednesday against Taliban fighters who have moved into several villages in southern Afghanistan in recent days, according to military officials.
Troops with the Afghan army and the Canadian command of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force initiated joint patrols around the district of Arghandab in the province of Kandahar early in the morning. Helicopter gunships flew overhead and armored vehicles rolled into the district as Taliban fighters exchanged fire with NATO and Afghan forces.
Kandahar’s provincial police chief, Sayed Agha Saqib, said at least 16 Taliban fighters were killed and four injured in the counteroffensive. He said insurgents had staked out positions in the orchards of Arghandab and were generally surrounded by NATO and Afghan forces.
NATO spokesman Mark Laity said there were no reported NATO casualties. A NATO general told the Reuters news service that some Afghan troops had been killed.
“The operation is on track and on schedule. So far, we’ve had only minor contact with insurgents,” Laity said.
Laity said Afghan and Canadian troops confirmed that there was a Taliban presence in Arghandab, but he said reports that hundreds of insurgents were active in the region were “greatly exaggerated.”
Saqib, the provincial police chief, said that it was difficult to estimate the exact number of insurgents in the region but that the numbers probably were exaggerated by Taliban spokesmen. There “are not that many to worry about,” he said.
Brig. Gen. Zaher Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, said that airstrikes were underway.
Preparations for the Afghan-led counteroffensive in Arghandab began Monday after officials reported that about 500 Taliban fighters had taken control of at least nine villages in the district. Arghandab is about 12 miles northwest of Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city. Hundreds of residents began fleeing the area Tuesday after Taliban insurgents blew up three bridges and laid mines along several roadways around Arghandab.
NATO forces airdropped hundreds of leaflets into Arghandab, warning residents to stay inside their homes in advance of the counteroffensive against the Taliban.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan on Wednesday, four British soldiers were killed and another soldier wounded in an explosion during an operation in Helmand province, according to the British Defense Ministry.
