Winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan continued:
Topic: War on Terror

The NYT reports that Afghan security forces, back by U.S. helicopters and Canadian troops fought a pitched battle with the Taliban on Friday in Kandahar province:

"The U.S helicopters, according to villagers, fired on farmhouse compounds, wounding civilians, damaging homes and killing animals...The governor of Kandahar province, Asadullah Khaled, said in a news briefing on Saturday that 41 rebels had been killed. Six Afghan policemen were killed --- including four who may have been possibly killed by fire from U.S. helicopters --- and nine police were wounded...At least one Afghan woman was killed in the cross fire, and two more civilians were injured, officials and villagers said.

Villagers who were caught in the cross fire on Friday in the village of Sartak confirmed that a large number of Taliban had come into the area several days earlier but said they had not come into the village. They angrily denounced the police and the coalition for coming to fight them in the village and causing civilian casualties and damage to homes."

Didn't I hear somewhere that the Taliban were finished? If anything the battles against them are escalating as we head toward summer. You can pin this one on Rummy, too. If he hadn't let OBL and the Taliban go on their merry way, maybe we wouldn't be rerunning the Russian occupation again.