Taliban losing battle in Afghan fight

AP/Globe and Mail:

Several key Taliban leaders and about 50 fighters have been killed in a NATO-led operation to clear militants from Afghanistan's violence-plagued south, officials said Wednesday.

Afghan forces are participating in the offensive in Kandahar's Panjwayi and Zhari districts, where NATO's biggest ground battle in its history — Operation Medusa — was fought in September.

Brig. Richard E. Nugee, the chief spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said about 50 Taliban fighters have been killed in the operation.

There have been no casualties among NATO troops, but a number of senior Taliban leaders been killed in airstrikes against Taliban command posts, he said.

“Taliban leaders are fleeing or being killed, and the Taliban soldiers don't know what to do,” Nugee said. “Like any organization, if you take out the head, often the body doesn't know what to do.”

...

The joint forces surrounded a large compound nearby where about 100 Taliban were located. After the Taliban returned fire on the forces, ISAF called in an airstrike that killed several fighters, Salloum said.

This last paragraph seems to be pretty typical of the fights with the Taliban. One of their problem is that the fighters are mainly Pakistani or Arabs and they do not know the ground on which they are fighting so it is harder for them to evade detection or retreat when attacked. They then group up in an area that the NATO forces can attack with air assets and destroy them. Light infantry just cannot survive against those odds. Note there were no NATO casualties. You cannot win a war when your side is the oply one taking casualties.