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NATO widens Afghan offensive, general says

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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Hundreds of NATO troops descended on southern Afghanistan's Helmand province overnight as part of an offensive against Taliban fighters, U.S. and allied officials said Thursday.

The assault, which began late Wednesday, included the airlift of troops into the Sangin Valley area, north of the onetime Taliban base of Kandahar, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said.

The new push is an expansion of the alliance's spring offensive, dubbed "Operation Achilles," said Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, in Washington. Gen. Dan McNeill, the chief of NATO troops in Afghanistan, is leading the operation, Pace added.

"I do not want to get into the specifics of the operations, but it will unfold very clearly here in the next couple of days what he has begun," Pace told reporters at the Pentagon.

The month-old operation involves nearly 5,000 NATO and Afghan troops in Helmand province, the scene of recent heavy fighting between Taliban and NATO-backed Afghan government forces. The push is also aimed at curbing drug traffickers in the country's south, Maj. Gen. Ton Van Loon, NATO's southern regional commander, said in March.

Recent fighting has displaced nearly 5,000 families in Helmand province, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has reported.

The area targeted by coalition troops includes the strategic Kajaki dam, which is projected to provide electricity to about 1.7 million Afghans when refurbished. The Taliban overran the town of Musa Qala, near the dam, on February 1.

The Taliban is the Islamic militia that ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and allowed the al Qaeda terrorist network to train and operate from its territory. A U.S.-led invasion deposed the Taliban after the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, but the movement has regained strength in southern Afghanistan since then.

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