KABUL, June 14: Western and Afghan forces have launched their biggest operation since the fall of the Taliban and are preparing to move into new guerilla strongholds, a spokesman for the US Army said on Wednesday.

The announcement came as 26 Taliban were killed in fighting near the border with Pakistan and four civilians died in rocket attacks.

The campaign, named Operation Mountain Thrust, was launched in southern Afghanistan in mid-May, spokesman Lt Col Paul Fitzpatrick said. Information about the operation had been under wraps.

Involving 11,000 troops, including from Britain, Canada and the United States, as well as Afghan soldiers, it is the strongest push against the Taliban since they were toppled from power in Dec 2001.

The operation has been timed to coincide with the looming transfer of command in the south from the US-led forces to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Col Fitzpatrick said.

It was intended to ‘set the conditions’ for the transfer due in late July or early August, he said.

“We have been conducting Operation Mountain Thrust since mid-May, disrupting the Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan, specifically their leadership,” he said.

“We are moving to the next phase of the operation in the northern provinces of southern Afghanistan,” he said from Bagram Air Base, near Kabul. These provinces have a strong Taliban presence.

The south saw a dramatic upsurge in attacks on occupation forces in mid-May, with Taliban fighters taking on Afghan and foreign troops in some of their biggest battles in years.

The western forces in turn launched major strikes. About 400 people, most of them guerillas but including Afghan security forces and about 40 civilians, were killed in a roughly two-week stretch.

Col Fitzpatrick said troops had encountered increased resistance from the Taliban, but this had been expected as there were more Afghan and western forces in the area than there had ever been.

The Taliban also appeared to have organised themselves better and this seemed to be because they realised ‘their window of opportunity is closing’, he said.

The new operation was not about ‘just killing and capturing extremists’, said another spokesman, Col Tom Collins.

“It is very much about establishing the conditions where the government of Afghanistan can extend its authority into areas where it does not currently have a presence,” he told reporters.—AFP