BERLIN, April 13: Taliban have shown no sign that they have launched a ‘spring offensive’ against United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops in Afghanistan, German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung has said.
For months, Nato and US officials have said the Taliban would launch a major offensive on international troops after the spring thaw to build on gains they achieved last year.
“So far, one cannot speak of any spring offensive by the Taliban,” the minister told Reuters in an interview.
“There are, as in previous months, a large number of local armed incidents and attacks, of which around 90 percent are in the southern and eastern parts of the country.”
He said Pakistan had an important role to play in securing its border with Afghanistan, where destitute refugees became easy targets for recruiters of suicide bombers.
“It’s positive that around four million refugees have been repatriated to Afghanistan, but there are around two million Afghans in Pakistan, many of them in refugee camps,” he said.
US and Afghan troops backed by warplanes killed more than 35 Taliban during a five-hour battle in Helmand on Thursday, the US-led coalition said on Friday.
An International Security Assistance Force soldier was killed in a separate gun-battle with militants on Friday, becoming the 12th foreign soldier to die in the country in a week. Two Nato troops were injured.
US special forces and Afghan troops also killed three Taliban who pinned down a group of civilian contractors after their helicopter came down in another area. The Taliban earlier said they had ‘hit’ a Nato helicopter there.
Two Nato soldiers were killed in bomb blasts on Thursday.
Germany has placed six Tornado reconnaissance jets under Nato command, which will gather intelligence in areas where the Taliban have a strong foothold. Mr Jung said reconnaissance flights would begin next week.
“When the suicide attacks began to rise last year, in the north as well, I not only ordered an increase in the use of armoured vehicles but naturally also an increase in reconnaissance. Reconnaissance means protection,” he said.
He said he took the Taliban’s threats to increase suicide attacks seriously, but vowed that they would not deter Germany or its allies from their goal of helping the Afghan government restore security and stability to the country.
The world needed a stable and secure Afghanistan so that it did not become a haven for terrorists again, he said.
He also rejected any suggestion that international peacekeepers could share the fate of the former Soviet Union, which invaded the country in 1979, was eventually defeated and withdrew its last troops 10 years later.
The key, he said, was expanding their success in stabilising the northern and western regions to Afghanistan’s south and east.
He said the countries participating in the Afghan peacekeeping mission had adopted a five-year plan last year.
French President Jacques Chirac called his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai late on Thursday to “demand his support” for efforts to free two French aid workers apparently kidnapped by the Taliban in Nimroz on April 3, according to Mr Karzai’s office.
