Fighting is now well under way in southern Afghanistan, as NATO forces are executing Operation Moshtarak. The plan is aimed at shoring up security around Kandahar city and recapturing the remaining Taliban strongholds in Chah-e-Anjir, Western Babaji, Trek Narwa and Marjah in Helmand province, though the latter is getting all the publicity.
The operation has been billed as “NATO’s biggest” and a “test” of the new counter-insurgency policy, designed to first eradicate militants and, then, follow up re-establish government control and civil services. These claims may have been exaggerated for effect. Operation Medusa in 2006 was a big battle (and one that NATO almost lost), while the forward deployment of US troops in southern Helmand when ISAF commander General McCrystal originally arrived in theatre was then billed as NATO’s “first test”. But, given the bad news coming out of Kabul in the last few months, a success in Kandahar and Helmand will be key to the international effort.
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