The Do Over Battle

British and Afghan forces surrounded a town on Friday in preparation for an airborne assault by U.S. troops in a town where 2,000 Taliban fighters are believed to be held up. Musa Qala was captured by the Taliban in February without a single shot fired and the radical movement fighting to expel foreign forces from Afghanistan and reimpose its harsh brand of Islamic rule has held the town ever since. The battle for Musa Qala is expected to be intense because of the value to both sides. For the Taliban, there’s a major symbolic value in being able to hold a town in a country allegedly under the control of more than 40,000 NATO troops and their Afghan allies. Musa Qala is a useful command center for an insurgent army making it important that NATO dislodge the Taliban. That, and the fact that it’s a do-over, correcting what many officials see as a mistake by the British forces that allowed the Taliban to take control of in the first place.

The problem for NATO is that Musa Qala may be a very visible Taliban position but it’s only one of hundreds by some estimates, today, there is a permanent Taliban presence in more than half Afghanistan, and NATO struggling to expand its troop strength from reluctant European nations, is not well placed to roll it back.