Friday, June 26, 2009 KANDAHAR: NATO-led forces are seizing the initiative against insurgents in southern Afghanistan as thousands of US reinforcements move into the area, the Dutch commander for the region said. "We're entering a new state in the operation in which I would like to make the case that we took away the operational initiative from the insurgents," Major General Mart de Kruif, who oversees more than 30,000 international troops in the south, told reporters in a teleconference. De Kruif said that the NATO-led force was "now entering a new stage, in which we will have the operational initiatives on our side and maintain it." With the influx of US Marines and Army combat troops in the volatile south, he said "significant operations" would be launched "in a very short time" in Helmand province and the city of Kandahar against insurgents. The Dutch general also expressed optimism the extra troops would ensure that security would be "increased" in time for presidential elections in August.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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