June 19, 2008	Thursday	Jamadi-us-Sani 14, 1429

ARGHANDAB (Afghanistan): Lined with shady pomegranate orchards and lush vineyards, Afghanistan’s southern Arghandab district looks like paradise but has become a key strategic target for the Taliban.

The fertile area is important to the Islamist movement as it is located just 16 kilometres from Kandahar, the country’s second biggest city and the place from which the Taliban rose to power in the 1990s.

Around 1,000 Afghan and Canadian Nato troops backed by helicopter gunships poured into Arghandab on Wednesday in a major operation to drive out militants who dug in there earlier this week.

“Arghandab is a very strategic area. It’s very vital for Nato and Afghan troops to control it,” said Afghan tribal chief Nik Mohammad, a former fighter against Soviet forces during the 1979-1989 occupation of Afghanistan.

“From my experience in the (anti-Soviet) jihad I can say that it’s very easy to hide in Arghandab’s vegetation. It has pomegranate trees and vineyards which can provide good cover for the Taliban,” Mohammad said.

He said the district was not only close to Kandahar but also well connected to the neighbouring, insurgency-hit provinces of Uruzgan, Zabul and Helmand, meaning that Taliban fighters and weapons can easily be shifted in.

“If the Taliban maintain their presence there and Nato and Afghan troops fail to force them out the Taliban can easily direct their attacks on targets within Kandahar city,” he added.

Ultra-conservative Kandahar itself has been in the Taliban’s sights since US-led forces ousted the hardline group from power in late 2001.

Two years ago the rebels fought huge battles with Afghan and Nato forces in Panjwayi, another district near Kandahar, in a bid to establish a stronghold on the edge of the city.

Rahimullah Yousafzai, a veteran Pakistani journalist and an expert on Afghan and Taliban affairs, said the rebels were on a high after a mass jailbreak from Kandahar at the weekend in which hundreds of rebels escaped.

The Taliban’s advance into Arghandab was “significant, although they are unlikely to hold on to their position. But it is a symbolic victory for them buoyed by a daring jailbreak days before,” Yousafzai said.

Yousafzai said that a surge in Taliban activity was usual in summer but that this time they were “pepped up because they have achieved initial successes against foreign and Afghan forces.” ”Arghandab was never a Taliban stronghold and in fact there was a lot of anti-Taliban feeling. The Taliban advance into this area is an embarrassment for Nato and Afghan forces,” he said.

Like Kandahar, Arghandab also has its own place in Taliban folklore because the former house of the movement’s fugitive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, lies on the road from the district on the outskirts of Kandahar city.

“It is now with foreign forces but it has a great value for the Taliban. If they are able to attack it from their position in Arghandab, it will be a big, big boost for them,” he said.—AFP