Locals flee town as Taliban dig in for NATO clash

Spin Boldak (Afghanistan), Feb 7: More than 1,000 villagers have fled a southern Afghan town as Taliban fighters dig in to repel NATO efforts to drive them out, residents and officials said today.

Helmand provincial governor Haji Assadullah Wafa told Reuters by phone a military operation would soon be launched to recapture Musa Qala, which the Taliban over-ran last week.

British-led NATO forces had struck a deal with tribal elders after months of heavy fighting to withdraw from the town if the Taliban were also kept out.

''The Taliban are only in the town to create problems for the people,'' he said. ''They do not have the ability to seize an area and maintain their control over it.

It is not uncommon for the Taliban to seize a town or district centre, but they do not hold them for long.

A large number of Taliban fighters had reinforced the town with heavy weapons, a resident told Reuters by phone, and NATO spy planes could be heard overhead.

The Taliban has accused foreign troops of violating the agreed truce with an air strike that killed the brother of local Taliban leader Mullah Ghafour. NATO commanders and villager elders say that strike was outside the area covered by the truce.

Ghafour was himself killed in an air strike on Sunday.

After the bloodiest year since the Taliban was ousted in 2001, NATO and the insurgents are gearing up for a major offensive when the snows melt in a few months.

The new commander of NATO's 33,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), US General Dan McNeill is expected to take a more aggressive approach than his British predecessor, General David Richards, after taking over on Sunday.

NATO's top operational commander wants more troops to help crush the Taliban, but faces widespread reluctance among allies to come forward, alliance officials said in Brussels yesterday.

US General Bantz Craddock will present a request for three and a half extra battalions -- the equivalent of more than 2,000 troops -- at a meeting of national defence ministers in Seville on Thursday and Friday, they said.

Italy protested to the United States and five other allies on Tuesday for publishing a letter in an Italian newspaper calling for greater support for the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

Reuters