NATO struggles to tame Taliban, calls for help

Kabul, Sept 8: Almost a week into its biggest offensive against the Taliban, NATO says it has cornered a large group of fighters and killed about 300, but still needs more troops and aircraft to finish the job.

More than 20 Taliban guerrillas were killed in Operation Medusa in the southern province of Kandahar yesterday, NATO said in a statement, adding that the remaining rebels had dug into fixed positions.

''We are steadily putting pressure on insurgent fighters,'' NATO spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Nick Grant-Thorold said in the statement received today.

''The insurgents have chosen to stay in prepared positions.'' But NATO says it needs more soldiers, helicopters and planes to crush the Taliban in their southern stronghold before the alliance also takes over in the east, bordering Pakistan, from US forces by the end of the year.

The alliance has roughly 18,500 troops in Afghanistan.

Analysts say the Taliban and their allies are the strongest they have been since they were ousted by a US-led coalition in 2001 in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States and fighting across Afghanistan is the bloodiest since then.

WORSE THAN IRAQ?

More than 2,300 people have died this year and some officials say the fighting in Afghanistan is now worse than in Iraq.

The guerrillas have moved beyond small-scale hit-and-run operations to pitched battles and larger strikes, sheltering and training in Pakistan despite Islamabad's efforts to stop them.

They are in part being bolstered by drug lords, who are expected to reap a record crop this year worth about 3 billion dollars and who are keen to keep the army and police at bay. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, criticised by some Afghan leaders for doing too little to stop militants operating from largely lawless borderlands, visited Kabul this week and pledged to join President Hamid Karzai in crushing the Taliban.

NATO leaders are pressing alliance members to send more troops and equipment to the volatile south after a high-level delegation visited this week, highlighting divisions over where and how some countries deploy their forces.

''Those allies who perhaps are doing less in Afghanistan should think: Shouldn't we do more? ... There are certainly a number of allies who can do more,'' NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters in Brussels on his return.

GERMANY UNDER PRESSURE

He did not single out any nation, but diplomats say Germany, which leads the NATO mission in the relatively calm north, where troops have no need even to patrol highways, is under pressure to offer reinforcements for the south.

British, Canadian and Dutch forces are providing the backbone of the operations in the south and taking heavy casualties.

At least five Canadian soldiers and 14 Britons have been killed in Operation Medusa and many more in separate fighting. The Taliban disputes NATO's estimates of rebel deaths in Medusa.

As these countries face pressure at home over their casualties, their allies face stiff domestic debate over the dangers of sending their soldiers to more perilous areas.

NATO military chiefs are to discuss deployments at a meeting in Warsaw on Friday and Saturday, and alliance defence ministers will address the issue late this month in Slovenia, where Canada has said it will ask other nations to send more soldiers south.

While Afghan leaders and analysts say the Taliban has regrouped with the failure of the world community to bring development and jobs, NATO says fighting has increased because it is moving into new areas to take the battle to the rebels.

''It's something akin to poking the beehive, and the bees are swarming,'' top commander of operations General James Jones said.

REUTERS

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