Operation Mountain Thrust Paying Dividends

While the lede on the article says that there has been an upsurge in violence by the Taliban, the net result is that the Taliban are getting their hats handed to them in every engagement. More than 70 were killed in clashes with coalition and Afghan forces.

The Taliban know that US forces are supposed to hand off operations to NATO and believe that NATO will be less willing to take the fight to the Taliban than the US is. So, they're trying to exploit the time before the handoff to try and make advances.

Last week the U.S.-led coalition announced a major offensive, codenamed "Operation Mountain Thrust", to push deep into the Taliban's southern heartland.

A clash erupted on Friday after about 40 Taliban fighters attacked coalition forces in the Tarin Kot district of the southern province of Uruzgan.


"They all were killed," Soldier Chris Miller, a spokesman for the coalition forces, told Reuters of the Taliban casualties.

In another incident, coalition and Afghan forces attacked "a large group of extremists" in the Zharie district of neighboring Kandahar province, killing 25 rebels in a battle that lasted three hours, a U.S. military statement said.

Four more rebels were killed in a firefight with a coalition patrol in Kandahar on Friday night, Major Quentin Innes, a coalition spokesman, said.

The Taliban were not immediately available for comment, but have rejected reports of big losses in recent weeks.

Of course the Taliban rejects that report - because if it was confirmed by the Taliban, they'd be undermining their own cause.