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NATO Disputes Afghan Reports Of Taliban Battle

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The Associated Press

Published: June 18, 2008

ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan - Taliban fighters destroyed bridges and planted mines after overrunning villages outside southern Afghanistan's largest city, Afghan officials and witnesses said. Hundreds of farm families fled while the Afghan army rushed in troops.

Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense said Tuesday that between 300 and 400 militants, many of them foreigners, took over the Arghandab region 10 miles northwest of Kandahar. NATO disputed the account, however, saying its troops there saw no signs of a Taliban offensive.

Afghan officials, fearing a major battle, told residents to leave the area.

The Taliban have long sought to control Arghandab and the good fighting positions its pomegranate and grape groves offer. With control cemented, militants could cross the plains to make probing attacks into Kandahar, in possible preparation for an assault on their former stronghold.

The reported offensive on Monday came three days after a Taliban attack on Kandahar's prison that freed 400 insurgents.

However, NATO's International Security Assistance Force and the U.S.-led coalition offered a strikingly different picture of the Arghandab region than the one portrayed by Afghan officials. The U.S.-led coalition said in a statement that it had sent a patrol through Arghandab that met no resistance.

Coalition spokesman Capt. Christopher Colster said troops patrolled for about five hours on the west side of the Arghandab River, where Afghan officials say the militants are, but didn't make any contact with insurgents. The troops also didn't report seeing fleeing civilians, he said.

"In talking to our folks they do not have any imminent concern that Kandahar is about to fall to the Taliban," U.S. Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell said in Washington.

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