KABUL, Afghanistan – Thousands of U.S. soldiers are preparing an operation against Taliban insurgents to pre-empt an expected spring offensive that could upset plans for Afghan parliamentary elections, a senior American general said Tuesday.
The operation will begin within days of Tuesday’s inauguration of Hamid Karzai as Afghanistan’s first directly elected president – an event that itself is a potential target, Maj. Gen. Eric Olson said.
“There could be an unhappy coincidence between the enemy’s spring offensive and the parliamentary elections,” Olson said at the main U.S. base at Bagram, north of Kabul.
He said the aim is to tighten the Afghan-Pakistan border by sending special forces on raids against rebel leaders.
Olson said the offensive – which will cover the entire U.S.-led force of about 18,000 – would attempt to disturb militants in their “winter sanctuaries” so that they will be in no shape to move against the parliamentary vote slated for April.
The military will be “attempting to attack him in those sanctuaries while he’s resting and refitting, staging and planning,” said Olson, the operational commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
The new operation, dubbed Lightning Freedom, follows a security push begun in July to protect the October presidential election, the first vote since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
Forty people were reported killed on election day, Oct. 9, but Taliban holdouts failed to make good on threats to assault polling stations across the country.
More than 8 million Afghans voted, handing Karzai a majority that foreign donors bankrolling the country’s democratic rebirth hope will bring stability after more than 20 years of fighting.
Still, violence continues to plague the south and east, where militants are strongest. A roadside bomb killed two U.S. soldiers in Uruzgan province last week, and American officials say militants continue to cross to and from neighboring Pakistan.
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