U.S., Afghan Troops Launch Offensive

Afghan villagers look at a destroyed vehicle after it was blown off in a bomb blast on the out skirt of Kabul, Afghanistan on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2006. The remote-controlled device went off as a car carrying four Afghan nationals passed by on the main road in Musayi district, Kabul province, police said. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq) (Musadeq Sadeq - AP)

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Thousands of American and Afghan troops unleashed a new offensive against Taliban militants in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday in an effort to expand the government's reach into the volatile Pakistani border region.

The operation comes as a NATO-led force, including 2,500 U.S. soldiers, is launching heavy attacks on militants in Afghanistan's south, claiming to have killed hundreds of guerrillas over the past two weeks.

In London, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said Saturday he expects the military campaign against the Taliban to last another three to five years.

The new offensive is "just one part of a series of coordinated operations placing continuous pressure on Taliban extremists ... in order to provide security to the population, extend the government to the people and to increase reconstruction," the military said in a statement.

Dubbed Operation Mountain Fury, the offensive involves 7,000 U.S. and Afghan soldiers in the central and eastern provinces of Paktika, Khost, Ghazni, Paktya and Logar, the military said. Fighter planes and helicopters will back the forces.

Taliban and other Islamic extremist groups, including al-Qaida, are known to operate in the region, especially in the area bordering Pakistan where the reach of the government is weak and militants find sanctuaries.

Highlighting the dangers the troops face, two separate insurgent attacks on a military base in Khost province killed a U.S.-led coalition soldier and wounded another on Friday, the military said. A number of Afghan troops also were wounded, a statement said.

A suspected suicide bomber also blew himself up in the same province when explosives strapped to his body went off prematurely as he approached a police checkpoint on Saturday. Nobody else was injured in the blast, police said.

The U.S. military said troops have been preparing for weeks for Mountain Fury but launched its "maneuver phase" early Saturday. A separate U.S.-led operation called Big Northern Wind has been under way in neighboring Kunar province's Korangal Valley since late August.

The offensives come as the country is going through its bloodiest phase since the U.S.-led invasion ousted the hard-line Taliban from power in 2001.

Lt. Gen. David Richards of Britain, who took command of the 8,000-strong NATO force last month, said predicted the campaign to crush the Taliban would take three to five more years and added he was determined to succeed.

He told Channel 4 News fighting in the turbulent southern province of Helmand had been "very intense" until about two weeks ago but that the Taliban had lost many fighters.