Taliban leaders seized in assault on Afghan town

KABUL—Afghan and NATO-led forces have captured two senior Taliban leaders during an offensive to retake the insurgents’ most important stronghold in Afghanistan, the Defense Ministry said on Sunday. Musa Qala, in the southern province of Helmand, is symbolic for both sides in the conflict in Afghanistan as the only sizeable Afghan town controlled by the Taliban.
Forty-eight hours after the operation began, there was less fighting on Sunday as troops resupplied and positioned themselves for the assault on the town. “If you think of it like a house, the house is surrounded, the Afghan army is waiting outside. We are in the process of kicking the door in, then the Afghan army is going through it,” said British army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Eaton.
“Right now it is going according to plan. As to how tough the fighting will or will not be, that is up to the insurgents,” General Dan McNeill, the commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, told reporters. “If the insurgent wants to fight then the Afghan forces going into Musa Qala will be up to the task,” he said.
The operation is expected to last several days, but Afghan and foreign forces appeared to have scored an early victory with the capture of two Taliban civilian leaders in Helmand. “During the operation, two Taliban commanders named Mullah Mateen Akhond and Mullah Rahim Akhond have been captured by joint forces,” the Afghan Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Mullah Rahim Akhond is the Taliban-appointed governor of Helmand, while Mullah Mateen Akhond is the Taliban district governor of Musa Qala. The Afghan government appealed to Taliban fighters to lay down their arms. “The Taliban in Musa Qala must put their weapons down and surrender or they will face an offensive by Afghan forces,” the Defense Ministry statement said.
A dozen or more insurgents were killed when Taliban fighters attacked an Afghan army checkpoint on the edge of Musa Qala, McNeill said, and two civilians also died in the crossfire. A British soldier was killed in the operation around Musa Qala on Saturday, and ISAF said another of its soldiers was killed in southern Afghanistan on Sunday.
Up to 300 civilians have fled the fighting, the Afghan Defense Ministry said, but ISAF commander McNeill said there were still many non-combatants in the centre of Musa Qala. “We have some photo imagery of Musa Qala district centre that we have been taking on a regular basis and I don’t agree with your premise that a lot of people are vacating it. We have seen some people vacating but not the hordes you suggest,” he said.
A Taliban spokesman said insurgents had killed more than 30 NATO and Afghan troops and said four Taliban fighters had been killed. Qari Mohammad Yousuf said the insurgents were dug-in in fortified bunkers in Musa Qala and warned of heavy casualties if NATO and Afghan troops attempted a final assault on the town.
After coming under sustained Taliban attacks, British troops pulled out of Musa Qala in October last year in a truce criticized by U.S. commanders that handed control of the town to tribal elders. The Taliban then seized Musa Qala in February. U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban for refusing to give up al Qaeda leaders after the September 11, 2001 attacks. But foreign forces had only a limited presence in Helmand, allowing the Taliban to regroup and take control of large parts of the mainly desert province until around 7,000 British troops moved in to the province around 18 months ago.
Since then, mainly British and Afghan forces have been fighting for control of the towns and villages along the fertile strip of land on the banks of the Helmand River and its tributaries, where nearly half the world’s opium is grown.
The Taliban relaunched their insurgency two years ago with guerrilla attacks in the south and east and suicide bombings on cities across the country aimed at convincing Afghans their government and its Western allies cannot bring security.—Agencies