Afghanistan moves troops to south, clashes in north

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan is repositioning forces to the south after complaints too few are involved in major U.S. and British offensives against the Taliban, officials said on Wednesday, even as clashes erupted in the north.

Afghan troops battled a group of Taliban fighters dug into a valley in northern Kunduz on Wednesday, Defense Ministry spokesman Zaher Azimi said. He said fighters loyal to a wanted al Qaeda-linked Uzbek leader had entered the north recently.

With violence this year hitting its highest levels since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, thousands of U.S. Marines and British troops launched assaults in the southern Taliban stronghold of Helmand this month.

The new offensives are the first major operations under U.S. President Barack Obama's new regional strategy to defeat the Taliban and its militant Islamist allies and stabilize Afghanistan, which holds a presidential election on August 20.

A convoy belonging to a minor presidential candidate, former Taliban commander Mullah Salam Rocketi, was ambushed as he returned to Kabul after campaigning in northern Baghlan and one of his campaign officials was killed, Rocketi told Reuters.

Rocketi, an army commander during Taliban rule who renounced the militants after their overthrow to become a minister of parliament, was unhurt. He took his name because he often fired rocket-propelled grenades at occupying Soviet troops.

Two U.S. troops were killed by a roadside bomb in the south on Wednesday, the U.S. military said, taking to at least 30 the number killed in combat in July, the deadliest month of the war for U.S. forces.

Another member of the NATO-led force was killed in a separate blast but the nationality was not confirmed in Afghanistan. Britain's Ministry of Defense said a British soldier had been killed.

WEAKNESSES

The aim of the operations in Helmand is to clear the vast province of insurgents and hold the ground it wins, something overstretched NATO forces have so far been unable to do.

But the offensives underscored weaknesses in the Afghan security forces, with only about 650 fighting alongside some 4,000 U.S. Marines and a similar number of British troops in the major opium producing center.

Brigadier General Lawrence Nicholson, commander of U.S. Marines in Afghanistan, complained about a week after Operation Strike of the Sword began in Helmand that there were not enough Afghan troops involved. "You can do the math," he said.

He said many more were needed to build relations with local leaders, a major part of a new counter-insurgency strategy under General Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and identify Taliban members hiding among residents.

Azimi blamed the media for complaints about the paucity of Afghan troops fighting in Helmand and said security forces were stretched to their limit combating insurgents across the country.

He said an extra battalion of about 700 troops was being sent to join the fight in Helmand. Afghanistan already has more than 5,000 troops in the province, he said.

"We are sending an extra battalion to Helmand, it is en route and, with its arrival, the number of Afghan forces will exceed 6,000 in Helmand," Azimi told a media conference.

Afghanistan's army totals about 95,000 troops. The United States has about 58,000 troops in the country, with another 39,000 from NATO and other non.-U.S. coalition members.

Washington plans to increase its troop levels to 68,000 by year's end, more than double the 32,000 at the end of 2008.

Nicholson has said there were also problems with the quality of Afghan police units. Under Obama's new strategy, 4,000 more troops are also being sent to train Afghan security forces.

Violence has spiked across the country since the operations in Helmand began.

U.S. and British troops in Helmand and elsewhere have so far borne the brunt of the Taliban backlash. Record death tolls have prompted questions in London and Washington about strategies in Afghanistan and how long troops should remain.

In Berlin, German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said about 300 German soldiers had joined a week-long offensive against the Taliban around Kunduz.