{"id":71,"date":"2010-02-09T12:55:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-09T12:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wp3\/?p=71"},"modified":"2010-02-09T12:55:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-09T12:55:00","slug":"nato-readies-for-assault-on-taliban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sunnionline.us\/english\/2010\/02\/09\/71\/","title":{"rendered":"Nato readies for assault on Taliban"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-left: 5px; float: right;\" alt=\"nato-forces\" src=\"images\/stories\/news\/nato-forces.jpg\" width=\"255\" height=\"207\" \/>Thousands of Nato and Afghan troops are gearing up to launch a massive offensive in southern Afghanistan &#8211; the largest the country has seen since the 2001 US-led invasion.<\/div>\n<p>  <!--more-->  <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">Announcement of the joint operation, meant to target Taliban strongholds in Helmand province, comes as Nato defence ministers gather in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.<br \/>Al Jazeera&#8217;s David Chater, reporting from the capital, Kabul, said the target of the operation is believed to be the Marjah area, a stronghold of around 1,000 Taliban fighters.<br \/>Marjah is also thought to be the hub of the Taliban-controlled opium trade &#8211; which provides them with most of their funding.<br \/>The US marine corps has been broadcasting and handing out leaflets about their intentions to launch a major assault in Helmand province, Chater said.<br \/>&#8220;They [the Taliban] have had many days to prepare for this &#8211; it&#8217;s the same sort of situation I saw in Iraq when the assault on Fallujah came about; everyone knew that was going to happen at the time,&#8221; he said.<br \/>In some preliminary operations, about 32 Taliban and three soldiers have already been killed in Helmand province, the provincial government said on Thursday.<br \/>The operation took place in Nad Ali district, west of the provincial capital Lashkar Gar. Daud Ahmadi, a provincial government spokesman, confirmed the toll.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Afghan lead<\/strong><br \/>The Afghan defence ministry says the anti-Taliban push will be led by Afghan security forces as part of plans to hand over military and police responsibility to the Western-backed government.<br \/>&#8220;It will be a joint Afghan army, police, US Marines and Isaf forces operation led by Afghans,&#8221; Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a defence spokesman, said.<br \/>The operation will feature the largest contingent of the Afghan National Army yet deployed on such an attack.<br \/>&#8220;They&#8217;re due to take the lead in these sort of attacks by the end of this year, so its their performance that&#8217;s going to be critical in this assault,&#8221; Chater said.<br \/>The Taliban has said their forces will fight back to &#8220;the last drop of their blood&#8221;.<br \/>Eric Tremblay, a Nato spokesman, says the aim of the assault in Helmand is to &#8220;clear, hold and build, and deliver alternatives for all the Afghans&#8221;.<br \/>The United States and Nato have about 113,000 troops fighting in Afghanistan, with another 40,000 being deployed in the coming months.<\/p>\n<p> Source: Al Jazeera and agencies<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thousands of Nato and Afghan troops are gearing up to launch a massive offensive in southern Afghanistan &#8211; the largest the country has seen since the 2001 US-led invasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c59-islamic-world"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Nato readies for assault on Taliban - SunniOnline<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/sunnionline.us\/english\/2010\/02\/09\/71\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nato readies for assault on Taliban - SunniOnline\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Thousands of Nato and Afghan troops are gearing up to launch a massive offensive in southern Afghanistan &#8211; 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