Taliban vows to intensify attacks in Afghan south

By Jeremy Laurence

KABUL (Reuters) – U.S.-led coalition forces came under
renewed fire across southern Afghanistan on Wednesday as
Taliban militants vowed to intensify attacks before NATO
expands its peacekeeping role in the country.

A second foreign soldier was killed in as many days in
Uruzgan province, the coalition said on Wednesday, taking the
death toll of foreign troops this year to 65 — the bloodiest
period since coalition forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001.

Two coalition soldiers were wounded in the fighting on
Tuesday, a day after a foreign soldier and 11 others were
wounded in a clash in the same area. Their identities were not
given.

NATO will undertake the alliance’s biggest ground operation
in its history at the end of the month when it assumes
responsibility for security in the south from the United
States. NATO already oversees operations in the north, west and
Kabul.

Leading up to the handover, which is meant to allow the
U.S. to cut the size of its force in Afghanistan, the coalition
has embarked on a big offensive in the south against a
resurgent Taliban and their allies.

A statement purportedly issued by the Taliban and obtained
by Reuters on Wednesday warned they would broaden their range
of attacks.

“There will be a manifold increase in mujahideen (holy
warriors) operations in the coming few days,” said the
statement. “The operations will be strong and intense and new
fronts will be opened against the enemy around the country.”

DRUGS

German defense officials, visiting their troops based in
the relatively peaceful north of the country, said the rise in
violence was partly fueled by drugs.

Afghanistan produces around 90 percent of the world’s opium
and the United Nations fears cultivation levels of poppy are
back on the rise after production decreased in the immediate
aftermath of the fall of the Taliban.

“A number of small Taliban groups are attempting to
activate in the north … where poppy is cultivated and
smuggled,” General Markus Kneip, commander of the NATO-led
peacekeeping force in the north, told reporters in
Mazar-i-Sharif. He was accompanied by German Defense Minister
Franz-Josef Jung.

Poppy is mostly grown in Helmand province, but it also
cultivated in some areas of the north. The north is a main
transit route for opium and its refined form, heroin, into
central Asia.

Uruzgan and Helmand provinces, which respectively come
under Dutch and British-led operations, have been the focus of
the heaviest fighting in the past six weeks.

A coalition statement said on Wednesday militants were
using religious sites to wage attacks.

It said an unknown number of insurgents fired on coalition
troops from a religious shrine in Helmand and a supply convoy
came under small arms fire from a mosque in neighbouring
Kandahar province.

The Afghan defense ministry said two districts taken by the
Taliban had been recaptured in Helmand. Two Afghan soldiers
were wounded in a separate incident in the same province, and
three militants were arrested in the south, a statement said.

(Additional reporting by Sayed Salahuddin and Yousuf Azimy
in Kabul; Tahir Atmar in Mazar-i-Sharif)