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Taliban routed by Afghan, Nato forces in Kandahar

56 militants killed in fighting

AFP, Arghandab
Afghan and Nato forces using air power cleared Taliban militants from villages near the strategic city of Kandahar yesterday, killing at least 56 Islamist insurgents, officials said.
Ttoops were now making a final search of houses in Arghandab district, a day after around 1,000 soldiers launched a huge offensive against the rebels, said the defence ministry and the Nato-led International Security Assistance force.
A Nato spokesmen said the "highly successful" operation involving air strikes would help allay concerns about the force's capabilities after hundreds of militants escaped from Kandahar's main jail at the weekend.
Taliban spokesmen had said
some of the fugitives from the prison were among those who took up defensive positions in Arghandab's dense pomegranate groves and vineyards from Monday evening.
"Arghandab district is totally cleared of the enemy presence," defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said at a joint press conference in Kabul with Nato officials.
Fifty-six "enemies” were killed, mostly foreigners, while a number of others were wounded, Azimi added, in a likely reference to militants crossing from neighbouring Pakistan.
A civilian and two Afghan troops also died, he said.
Kandahar provincial governor Asadullah Khaled said earlier that hundreds of Taliban were killed or NEWS
wounded during the offensive and also confirmed that the district had been cleared.
Nato civilian spokesman Mark Laity said the operation, which was led by Afghan forces and involved Canadian troops, was an effective response to Friday's jailbreak in Kandahar.
"Nobody is complacent, but so far it been highly successful," Laity told reporters.
"After the recent incident, the jailbreak, there was concern about our capabilities. This was a fast and very effective response, I think something that all Afghans can take great heart from." Lairy added.
The joint forces were now "in the closing stage of the operation," codenamed Operation Doar Bukhou, or Turn Around, ISAF military spokesman General Carlos Branco told the same news conference.
He accused the Taliban of lying about their numbers in the district, adding: "The insurgents were there, but they do not have the numbers or the foothold that they have claimed."
The Taliban's build-up in Arghandab posed a fresh challenge to President Hamid Karzai as he seeks to tackle the bloodiest phase of an insurgency launched after the hardline movement was toppled in
2001.
The rebels viewed the district as a strategic stepping stone towards their goal of retaking Kandahar, the city where the movement rose to power in 1996.
The Taliban said in a statement on their website that a group of "martyrdom attackers" had entered Kandahar city to target Canadian and Afghan soldiers and Afghan officials, the SITE Intelligence Group said.
With nearly 70,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, Karzai has come under growing pressure from his Western allies to improve security, but the Afghan leader has faced a series of setbacks including Friday's mass prison breakout.
Karzai responded by threatening to launch attacks on militants on Pakistani soil, sparking a war of words with Islamabad.
In the Pakistani border town of Chaman on Thursday, hundreds of people chanting "Death to Karzai" burned an effigy of the Afghan leader in protest at his comments, an AFP reporter witnessed.
The Arghandab operation began as the deaths of the six Nato soldiers were announced elsewhere in Afghanistan. Four were British, including the nation's first female casualty in Afghanistan, in the southern province of Helmandc