http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080617/afghan_violence_080617/20080617?hub=TopStories

Afghan villagers flee as battle looms in Arghandab

Updated Tue. Jun. 17 2008 7:06 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Residents of Arghandab district in Afghanistan's Kandahar province are fleeing as they fear a major clash between Taliban rebels and coalition forces.

They are pulling out in the middle of harvest season, thus putting themselves at risk of financial ruin.

Arghandab sits about 15 kilometres north of Kandahar City, the second-largest in Afghanistan.

About 500 Taliban insurgents moved into the area on Monday, taking over several villages and taunting coalition troops.

They have reportedly planted mines and destroyed culverts and bridges.

Sardar Mohammad, a police officer manning a checkpoint, told The Canadian Press that four planeloads of Afghan National Army soldiers have been flown in from Kabul.

Canadian soldiers have also moved in and are awaiting the order to attack, he said.

The looming conflict comes after a spectacular attack last Friday on Sarposa Prison in Kandahar.

About 400 Taliban fighters were among those who escaped.

More to come ...

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iC9Td5EiFdAZ6bnYqyBzAQ1xzfmA

Officials fear Kandahar city next target as Taliban grab control of villages

2 hours ago

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters stormed onto the doorstep of Afghanistan's second-largest city Monday, seizing villages, bombing small bridges, and scattering landmines to keep Canadian and international troops at bay.

The head of the Kandahar provincial council and brother of President Hamid Karzai said the rebels claimed control of numerous villages and were rumoured to be planning attacks on a bigger target: Kandahar city.

Canadian soldiers are playing a major role in a multinational push to keep the Taliban from advancing and are accompanied by the Afghan army and U.S. special forces, said Ahmed Wali Karzai.

But their path was blocked by bombed-out culverts and landmines planted by the rebels, he added.

Karzai said the Taliban had nabbed control of more than a half-dozen villages in the lush Arghandab river valley, just next door to Kandahar city, the birthplace of the Taliban.

"They have taken over there," Karzai told The Canadian Press in a telephone interview Monday.

"There are also strong rumours that they will attack Kandahar city at strategic points - my house, the government's house, the police station."

The Taliban's push into the Arghandab district comes three days after an attack on Kandahar's prison that freed an estimated 400 insurgent fighters.

For now, the Taliban have set up position in villages immediately across the river that borders the city, which is home to the international base where most of Canada's 2,500 troops are stationed.

The villages under rebel control separate Kandahar city from the $50-million dam project Canada announced last week as its flagship reconstruction effort in the country.

Police officer Sardah Mohammad said more than 700 families - about 4,000 people or more - have fled the Arghandab district.

Police on Tuesday were stopping and searching every person travelling on the east side of the Arghandab River.

Karzai said Afghan security forces had been sent in from the capital to help protect the volatile region: "Everyone in Kabul is very much concerned."

However, he downplayed the threat of an attack on Kandahar city.

He said the Taliban have in the past grabbed Arghandab villages only to lose them, and similar rumours about an attack on Kandahar have circulated before.

But the concern was palpable even inside the NATO security bubble Monday.

Some employees of the international troops refused to leave their homes Monday out of concern for their safety and did not come into work. One Canadian soldier bluntly assessed the situation:

"****'s hitting the fan," he said. "They want to take the city. They want to make a statement."

Karzai said it was unclear if the Taliban commanders responsible for the raid on Arghandab were some of the same inmates who escaped from Sarposa prison in last week's explosive raid.

Friday's attack involved dozens of militants on motorbikes and two suicide bombers. One suicide bomber set off an explosives-laden tanker truck at the prison gate while a second bomber blew up an escape route through a back wall. Rockets fired from inside the prison's courtyard collapsed an upper floor.

One Taliban fighter who escaped from the Kandahar prison Friday said he plans on rejoining the insurgency.

"This is jihad," Ameer Mohammed, 27, told The Associated Press on Monday. "We will not abandon it because we were jailed."

The government leader in the Arghandab, Mohammad Farooq, said around 500 Taliban fighters had moved into his district and taken over several villages.

A tribal leader from the region warned that the militants could use the cover from Arghandab's grape and pomegranate orchards to mount an attack on the provincial capital itself.

"All of Arghandab is made of orchards. The militants can easily hide and easily fight," said Haji Ikramullah Khan.

NATO Brig.-Gen. Carlos Branco said international troops were being redeployed within the region. But he confidently dismissed the notion that Kandahar city could be attacked.

"No doubt about that," he told The Canadian Press in an interview. He also downplayed suggestions that the Taliban had seized control of vast swaths of the district next door.

"At this stage, Arghandab is not on the brink of being conquered by the Taliban," Branco said.

Two powerful anti-Taliban leaders from Arghandab have died in the last year, weakening the region's defences.

Mullah Naqib, the district's former leader, died of a heart attack last year. Taliban fighters moved into Arghandab en masse last October after his death, but left within days after hundreds of security forces were deployed there.

A second leader - police commander Abdul Hakim Jan - died in a massive suicide bombing in Kandahar in February that killed more than 100 people.

The Taliban movement was born and achieved its breakout military successes on the outskirts of Kandahar city in 1994.

Led by the one-eyed cleric Mullah Omar, the band of bearded jihadists declared war on highway robbers who profited from the country's devastating civil war to steal from the locals.

They were considered heroes in Kandahar and, later, even greeted by residents of cosmopolitan Kabul when they rolled in on their Toyota pickup trucks promising law and order in the war-weary capital.

They were even on friendly terms with the Karzai family before a bitter falling-out.

But the Taliban became widely despised for their cruelty, their increasingly harsh interpretation of religious law, and their endless catalogue of restrictions on citizens - especially women.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan on Monday, Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces killed 35 insurgents in two skirmishes in the south, the coalition said.

Twenty rebels were killed in Zabul province after they attacked a combined patrol with rockets, mortars and gunfire. The combined forces returned fire and called in air strikes in Sunday's battle.

Fifteen insurgents were reportedly killed in the Sangin area of Helmand province Saturday after a group of men in a treeline fired on Afghan and coalition troops. Two hours of fighting ensued, and military aircraft were again called in.

More than 1,900 people have died in insurgent violence in Afghanistan this year, according to Afghan and western officials.

-With files from The Associated Press.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/world/asia/17afghan.html?_r=1&ref=asia&oref=slogin

Taliban Fighters Infiltrate Area Near Southern Afghan City

Article Tools Sponsored By
By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: June 17, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Hundreds of Taliban fighters have swarmed into a strategically important district just outside Kandahar, the biggest city in southern Afghanistan, apparently in a push for control just days after 400 Taliban members escaped in a spectacular breakout from the Kandahar prison, officials said Monday.

Afghan military reinforcements arrived in Kandahar on Monday and have already deployed in Kandahar Province, said a NATO spokesman, Mark Laity. The soldiers flew from Kabul and more can be expected to follow, he said. NATO forces based in Kandahar Province have also redeployed to be better prepared for any potential threat, he said.

A government spokesman, Parwez Najib, confirmed the news that Taliban fighters had infiltrated parts of the district, Arghandab. “There is not fighting yet,” he said. Afghan and foreign forces are aware of the presence of the Taliban, he added.

It was unclear whether any of the fighters were among the prison escapees.

The move by the Taliban on Arghandab, a district that is critical to the security of the city of Kandahar and therefore to the entire south of Afghanistan, comes amid an increased sense of crisis in Afghanistan. Kandahar is still reeling from Friday’s brazen attack by the Taliban on the prison, in which they released some 1,200 inmates, 400 of them members of the Taliban, including some district commanders.

In a sign of his increasing frustration with the threats to his government, President Hamid Karzai raised the possibility Sunday of sending Afghan troops into Pakistan to hit militant leaders who had vowed to continue a jihad in Afghanistan.

His comments, which Pakistan protested Monday, were welcomed by Afghan tribesmen gathered for a council meeting in the southeastern province of Paktika. “People here have long been asking the government to solve the problem of infiltration from Pakistan,” the provincial governor, Muhammad Akram Khapalwak, said after the meeting. “People were saying today that Mr. Karzai has been too late in saying this, and it should have been said two years ago.”

In Arghandab, local journalists working for the BBC and Al Jazeera quoted local government officials as saying that 500 Taliban fighters had swarmed into 10 villages in the district.

Families were fleeing their homes in Arghandab to take refuge in the city, they said. Some of the families said they had been told by the Taliban to leave, an indication the Taliban intended to make a stand and fight.

Arghandab is a rich, thickly populated river valley of orchards and vineyards running northwest from Kandahar into a range of barren mountains that have been a refuge for mujahedeen fighters and Taliban insurgents. Control of Arghandab is considered critical to control of the city of Kandahar and has been the source of forces that have seized the city in the past.

The Taliban have been pushing into Arghandab for months and have made several attacks on police posts and tribal leaders from the area over the last year. The deaths of Mullah Naqibullah, the longtime leader of the Alokozai tribe that populates Arghandab, and another senior commander, Abdul Hakim Jan, who was killed in a huge suicide bombing in February, have critically depleted the tribe, which has always fiercely opposed the Taliban.

Canadian troops and the Afghan police pushed back a Taliban force after it made a brief show of force in Arghandab in October. Families fled as the troops moved into the district, but the Taliban fell back quickly and the operation was over within days.

Abdul Waheed Wafa contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.

Looks like things are going to get interesting. If the Taliban want a fight, they are certainly going to get one. I'm also willing to bet that they will get spanked like they did last time they tried to mount a battle in that region last October, and run a way with an @ss load of casualties again too...

omg there gonna get shafted lol idiots

This really doesn't make any sense for the Taliban - unless they are total idiots.... Oh yeah.

I mean, they just break out of bunch of their cohorts out of the slammer just to put them all in a few places where they can be found & clobbered in large numbers...

Really, this sounds like something from a lecture on what not to do from your "insurgency 101" class.

On top of that, they are alienating themselves from the population by forcing them away from their grape crops just when they were about to harvest them.

Poor Afghans, they keep getting screwed over - by Taliban idiots, corrupt government and all too often half-assed international assistance.

I'm not sure how the A.N.A. will treat any prisoners this time.

Oh well, I hope NATO clobbers the buggers. It would be nice if someday they could also clobber the corrupt locals who screw over their own people.

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Leopard 2's > Donkey's

We have the Tech advantage anyway.

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"deeds, not words"

Qur'an:47:31 "And We shall try you until We know those among you who are the fighters."



We might not be seen among those who pray and we might not fast with those who fast, but we believe in God because we are in dire need of Him. Our burden is onerous, our road is rough and our aim is high. We have reached this faith; we did not start with it. We arrived at it through sufferings and hardships and did not receive it by inheritance nor was it handed down to us conventionally. For this reason it is invaluable for us, being the fruit of our efforts.
)In memory of the Arab Prophet, 1 -April, 1943(

This morning I was listening to an interview on CBC radio with a woman in Kandahar. The people are afraid and nervous: because 1000 criminals are now back on the streets of their city (you can at best only partly spin this as a "POW breakout"), because the Talibs were able to mount the operation in the first place under the noses of the local authorities, because the local authorities didn't really put up much of a fight (absolutely none of the prisoners was stopped from walking out of the place by the guards), because many of the refugees from the surrounding towns are guys with long beards without families around them (do the math), and a bunch of other stuff.

There was also mention of how people are now feeling safer that there are NATO troops visibly around the city (usually they are behind the wire at Kandahar.)

Scott Taylor and retired Colonel McDonald were on afterwards. Essentially, confirming that the Taliban's goals are political (aren't all insurgent's?) and aimed at both the local Afghans (no one can protect you from us - including the foreigners who all too often in Kandahar, stay behind the wire while the local authorities are typical Afghan civil servants) and aimed at the Canadian public (Taylor and McDonald didn't bother to mention the rest of NATO for some reason.)

Hmmm, it sounds like Tet all over again. Hopefully, the results will be very different.

I wonder if all the talk of the Talibs occupying villages is partly a feint?




http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/445126


Taliban's fruitless dream TheStar.com - Columnist - Taliban's fruitless dream
ISMAIL SAMEEM/REUTERS

Under the watchful eye of an Afghan army gunner, families fleeing villages in the Arghandab district of Kandahar are searched June 17, 2008.

Militants are desperate to seize Kandahar city, but fighting in the open a recipe for their defeat
June 18, 2008
Rosie DiManno
COLUMNIST

They covet Kandahar city.

Can taste that succulent prize, hanging like a fat pomegranate within smash-and-grab distance.

More than Kabul, the Taliban have pined these past six-and-a-half years for the capital of Kandahar province – at one time, capital of Afghanistan – a ramshackle metropolis that is their spiritual home, the still fiercely beating heart of an insurgency that won't stay dead.

But the chances of Kandahar city falling are just about zero.

Even if it means transferring American troops by the battalion-load from eastern Afghanistan, or shifting some 2,400 Marines only recently landed as reinforcement cavalry in neighbouring Helmand, the city will not be allowed to pass from coalition-supported government control.

Some 700 extra Afghan troops were flown into Kandahar Airfield yesterday from Kabul.

For all the ruckus the Taliban have caused in the past six days, they are no more tactically close to seizing Kandahar than they were a month ago, or a year ago – and every year, since 2006, they've made the same boast: This year, Kandahar city.

Yet the insurgents – now allegedly ensconced in villages only 15 kilometres northwest of Afghanistan's second-largest city, on the opposite side of the Arghandab River – certainly appear to be wagging the dog.

How Afghan and NATO troops respond to this threat will be the true measure of the Taliban offensive's success; may, indeed, be the whole strategic point.

NATO cannot let the Taliban set the military agenda by drawing scarce troops into guerrilla-friendly terrain and leaving a vacuum that can be exploited elsewhere by outflanking defensive positions.

Nor can NATO use its overwhelming military might with air strikes – ineffective when the enemy is spread in small pockets over a broad area – that would likely kill a large number of civilians, thereby further antagonizing the local population. "The best counter-insurgency practice means taking the population in villages, in communities, as your centre of gravity," a diplomatic source told the Toronto Star earlier.

"We can't let the Taliban distract us from that goal. And we know they try to draw international troops into clashes where civilian casualties are likely, where we use air power and fire power."

In an interview with the Star from Kabul, International Security Assistance Force spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Carlo Branco said he credits the insurgents with mounting an effective propaganda campaign the last few days, as the Taliban exploits Friday night's brazen breakout at Sarposa prison in Kandahar city.

But he said there was no confirmation of reports of the Taliban planting mines and blowing up bridges in the Arghandab district.

NATO patrols have been "moving freely" without resistance, he said.

Branco said no air strikes had been called in, either, because no targets had been identified to bomb. He also denied any mass movement out of the region by civilians. And, contrary to some reports, ISAF hasn't been urging villagers to evacuate.

One local tribal elder reported that the Taliban had taken control of 18 villages northwest of the Arghandab River and had started digging trenches for combat cover.

Certainly, the Taliban's ubiquitous spokespeople have been saying quite a lot, claiming 450 Taliban were among the fugitives who escaped from Sarposa and that nearly all have joined up with Taliban units to engage anew in jihad.

Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, in an interview with The Canadian Press, claimed 500 fighters have assembled in Arghandab, preparing for an operation called "IBRAT," which stands for "Learn a lesson from past deeds and doings."

In a separate interview with Associated Press, Taliban commander Mullah Ahmeddulah said about 400 fighters had moved into the Arghandab from Khakrez, a district just north of the valley, and these forces included Sarposa fugitives.

"They told us: `We want to fight until the death.'

"We've occupied most of the area and it's a good place for fighting. Now we are waiting for the NATO and Afghan forces."

If nothing else, the increasingly sophisticated insurgency appears to have learned a great deal from "past deeds and doings."

Operation Medusa, in the summer of '06, cost the insurgents dearly when they were obliterated by artillery and air power after entrenching themselves in a swath of terrain around the town of Pashmul. NATO estimated upwards of 1,000 Taliban fighters killed in that operation.

Although insurgents have infiltrated – rather than seized – villages in the Arghandab valley before, as recently as a year ago, they've always been repelled by ISAF and Afghan troops rumbling to the rescue.

The Taliban's other major – and eventually thwarted – incursion was last year in Musa Qala, which insurgents occupied after British troops were forced to retreat, turning the Helmand town into a propaganda showpiece, holding military parades and executing accused collaborators.

It required a major show of force by NATO in December to take back the town and the district, putting the lie to Taliban claims that they possessed artillery pieces and anti-aircraft guns.

The Taliban prepared for this robust challenge to ISAF and Afghan forces, it's believed, by ambushing and killing key allies of the central government in recent months – tribal elders and district commanders who had helped keep restive Kandahar in check.

Clearly, they do have long-term plans and strategies. From Arghandab, they also have a clear path to Kandahar city, across flat plains.

But that would mean coming out into the open. And getting crushed.
Columnist Rosie DiManno has returned last week from a one-month assignment in Afghanistan.

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It seems the spanking has begun...

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080618/afghan_op_080618/20080618?hub=TopStories

rghandab clashes leave 36 Taliban dead: Afghans

Updated Wed. Jun. 18 2008 10:34 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Afghan officials claim that at least 36 Taliban fighters have died in fighting with coalition forces in the Arghandab district of Kandahar province.

Earlier Wednesday, NATO spokesperson Mark Laity talked of "a few minor contacts."

The Afghan Defence Ministry said coalition forces killed 20 Taliban in one village and 16 in another. Two Afghan soldiers were reported killed.

Reporters at the scene saw helicopters and jets above the battlefield, with smoke rising follow following exchanges of fire.

The Arghandab district of Kandahar province is just north of the provincial capital of Kandahar City. A group of Taliban, up to 500 in size, moved into the area on Monday. Residents have been fleeing in response.

"Frankly there can be insurgents anywhere in this province. It's a bit like finding a needle in a haystack," Brig.-Gen. Dennis Thompson, Canada's top commander in Afghanistan, told reporters in Arghandab on Wednesday.

"The insurgent presence in Arghandab district that has caused the reaction you see in front of you is largely on the west side of the (Arghandab) River from us," he said.

Alexander Panetta, a Canadian Press reporter in Afghanistan, told Canada AM that "you've got a battle that looks a little more like conventional warfare than a counterinsurgency."

Every time the Taliban takes on western armies in a stand-up fight like this, they lose, he said.

But the pomegranate groves provide good cover for the insurgents, he said.

Foreign affairs analyst Eric Margolis told Newsnet that Arghandab is strategically important because it controls access routes into Kandahar City about 15 kilometres to the west.

On Tuesday, NATO and Canadian spokespersons were downplaying the possibility of an imminent conflict in Arghandab, even as Afghan National Army reinforcements were being flown in from Kabul.

Retired Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie told Canada AM that initial reports from battlefields "are always wrong."

He thought of this operation as a relatively small one and that the Taliban were making a mistake by frightening the local population into fleeing.

"In an insurgency, you want the local civilian population to be around you," he said.

The civilians can provide insurgents with protection against attack, along with things like food and intelligence, he said.

Having civilians move out exposes the Taliban to coalition attack, MacKenzie said.

However, had NATO been doing its job as a political entity, this situation in Arghandab should never have happened, he said.

"There'd be another 4,000 to 5,000 troops in Kandahar province that would be occupying those areas and not have to go in and retake them," he said.

This morning I was listening to an interview on CBC radio with a woman in Kandahar. The people are afraid and nervous: because 1000 criminals are now back on the streets of their city

man and i hurd on bbc asia that there was a lot of support for taliban in kandahar ??

any way want to ask about your signature is that you??


its pretty moving


any way about the taliban offensive
well to be honest i dont know wats wrong with them
they are a gurilla force
i dont know wat or who makes them act as a regular army
gurilla forces do not hold on to terratory and defend it

another 2 U.S troops killed in Afghnistan and as you might have already gotten to know another 4 British troops were also killed in action today.

total number of NATO n US casulties to 15.
but this offensive is proving expensive for NATO
may be change of tatics

the tatics have changed tatics they are blowing communation infrastructure has it been done before?




Wednesday, June 18, 2008
ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan: Taliban militants destroyed bridges and planted mines in several villages they control outside southern Afghanistan's largest city in an apparent preparation for battle, residents and officials said on Tuesday.

More than 700 families óó meaning perhaps 4,000 people or more óó had fled the Arghandab district, 15 kilometres northwest of the Kandahar city, said Sardar Muhammad, a police officer manning a checkpoint on the east side of the Arghandab River.

On the west side of the river, hundreds of Taliban controlled around nine or 10 villages, Muhammad said. ěLast night, the people were afraid, and families on tractors, trucks and taxis fled the area,î said Muhammad. ěSmall bridges inside the villages have been destroyed,î he added.

The Afghan army, which flew four planeloads of soldiers to Kandahar on Tuesday from Kabul, said 300 to 400 militants had gathered in Arghandab, many of them foreign fighters. The US-led coalition, however, said it conducted a patrol through the region ěand found no evidence that militants control the area.î

ěRecent reports of militant control in the area appear to be unfounded,î the coalition said in a statement. Nevertheless, Nato aircraft dropped leaflets in Arghandab, telling residents to stay indoors, Nato Spokesman Mark Laity said. ěKeep your families safe. When there is fighting near your home, stay inside while the ANSF (Afghan security forces) defeat the enemies of Afghanistan,î Laity quoted the leaflet as saying.

Laity said 700 Afghan army troops moved from Kabul to Kandahar to deal with the Arghandab threat. Police and army soldiers increased security throughout Kandahar and enforced a 10pm curfew.

A Taliban commander named Mullah Ahmedullah called a reporter on Tuesday and said around 400 Taliban moved into Arghandab from Khakrez, one district to the north. He said some of the militants released in Friday's prison break had joined the assault. ěWe've occupied most of the area and it's a good place for fighting. Now, we are waiting for the Nato and Afghan forces,î he added.

One of the thousands of Afghans fleeing Arghandab, Haji Ibrahim Khan, said the Taliban fighters were moving through several Arghandab villages with weapons on their shoulders, planting mines and destroying small bridges.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday downplayed the Afghan leader's threat to attack militants in Pakistan, saying that there was no intention to start a war with the neighbouring country.

"The president is not announcing that we are going to war with Pakistan. We do not intend to go to war with Pakistan. We believe in good relations," Karzai's spokesman Homayun Hamidzada told reporters in Kabul.

"The president used that strong language to convey a message. Pakistan is a sovereign state and should behave responsibly," he added. Hamidzada said Kabul expected Islamabad to stop the Taliban militants crossing the border into Afghanistan. "As a sovereign nation, you would not allow any other elements to use your territory against another sovereign state, and Pakistan is a sovereign state," Hamidzada said.

The boy's in ghanners have been capturing an unusually high number of under 16's the last few week's both fighters and tickers


Fair winds......
Dauntless sons of Celtic sires
Whose souls the love of freedom fires,
Hark! ev'ry harp to war inspires
On Cader Idris side.
See the brave advancing,
See the brave advancing,
Each well-tried spear
Which Saxons fear,
In warlike splendour glancing.
Proud Harlech from her frowning tow'rs
Pours forth her never failing pow'rs.
Rouse, heroes, glory shall be ours,
March on, your country's pride!

Quote: another 2 U.S troops killed in Afghnistan and as you might have already gotten to know another 4 British troops were also killed in action today. total number of NATO n US casulties to 15. but this offensive is proving expensive for NATO may be change of tatics

For every NATo soldier killed, roughly 20-30 Taliban are killed... Not a bad trade off if I say so.

And Banner... what do you expect? Those old enough to think for themselves know the Taliban are full of $hit... What better way to recruit than to get the young boys... they can also provide "entertainment" for them men while they take their breaks... perverts...

36 taliban have been killed in recient battles and 2 afghan troops
looks like it back to way it was

No Dharra, that's certainly not me in the signature. I found it from A.P. years ago at the start of "the so-called: so-called war on terror."

I have no idea what happened to the soldier, but pray that he's with his wife and kids someplace.

Regards.

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http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080619/afghan_update_080619/20080619?hub=TopStories

Taliban swept from Afghan district, governor says

Updated Thu. Jun. 19 2008 11:41 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Canadian troops and their allies have cleared out Taliban militants from the outskirts of Kandahar City, killing or injuring hundreds of insurgents, the provincial governor said Thursday. But coalition forces were more cautious in their assessment.

Kandahar Governor Asadullah Khalid made the announcement at a news conference with Canadian military officials.

"The Taliban have been cleared totally from Arghandab district," Khalid said.

"They have suffered hundreds of dead and wounded and many of their casualties are Pakistanis," he said, raising the death toll from 36 as stated the day before.

"We are finding more bodies, more wounded people,'' Khalid said.

Khalid also told media that local residents who were forced to leave their homes amid the fighting may be able to return over the next three days.

"The governor is also saying that the area has been completely cleared of Taliban, yet went on to say missions are continuing to route out Taliban fighters who may still be hiding in people's houses, gardens and caves," CTV's Middle East Bureau Chief Janis Mackey Frayer reported from Kandahar.

"So what we have right now is that yes this mission will continue, that it has met with some success and according to Canadian officials the biggest success is that perhaps there has been some sort of confidence restored in Afghan security services in the eyes of the Afghan people," Mackey Frayer told Canada AM.

But a spokesperson for NATO's Afghan force could not confirm that hundreds of Taliban in the Arghandab district located just to the northwest of Kandahar city had been driven out.

Meanwhile, Canada's top military official in the country, Brig. Gen. Denis Thompson, said the Afghan forces and their allies were hunting for the final remnants of resistance in the river valley next to Kandahar city.

"They're here in small numbers,'' Thompson told a news conference in the mountains above a river where heavy fire had been exchanged the day before.

"They've been defeated for the most part. . . They're trying to escape.''

Thompson also said he was encouraged, and that the operation has restored the confidence of the people in their own security forces and their own government.

NATO forces are also increasingly reassured from local eyewitness reports that the people do not support the insurgency.

"With the (recent) incidents that occurred some confidence was shaken,'' he said.

"But it should be restored.''

Still, Thompson cautioned that although the Arghandab valley has been cleared of rebels before, they have returned in the past.

On Wednesday morning, at least 800 Afghan and Canadian NATO forces launched a major offensive against Taliban insurgents who moved into the district and claimed villages along the Arghandab river this week.

Canadian and Afghan forces pushed Taliban fighters back from the villages with the help of aircraft and superior weapons.

On Thursday, the forces attacked Taliban militants in the district for the second day, in one of the biggest offensives in Afghanistan in recent years.

The battle is expected to continue until the weekend. It comes days after the Taliban blew open a prison and released hundreds of their allies from Kandahar city's Sarposa Prison.

Critics have noted the jail -- whose entrance was blown apart by a Taliban truck bomb -- had mud walls and a creek running through it, with an occasional landmine floating through

Quote: No Dharra, that's certainly not me in the signature. I found it from A.P. years ago at the start of "the so-called: so-called war on terror." I have no idea what happened to the soldier, but pray that he's with his wife and kids someplace. Regards.

ya hope he is back with his family