Brits and Taliban exchange intelligence info before attack

Telegraph:

A key Taliban-held town in southern Afghanistan is expected to fall to British troops and the national army within a matter of days.

Residents report that Nato aircraft have dropped leaflets warning of an imminent assault on Musa Qala in the north of Helmand province.

The town is of huge symbolic value to the Taliban. It has been in its hands for 10 months and is the only urban centre that the Islamist group has been able to take and hold.

Western sources have told The Daily Telegraph that it is planned that Afghan forces will lead the assault - the first time that the fledgling national army has undertaken an operation on such a scale.

After advancing from the base at Sangin, the British and Afghan troops are now said to be just two miles from the town. Local people have now begun to flee into the surrounding desert.

"Anything could happen, it is in God's hands," said a member of the tribal council of the town, who begged not to be named for fear of reprisals.

The air-dropped leaflets gave warning that the Taliban would be pursued from the area and urged the tribal leaders in Musa Qala to eject the insurgents themselves.

Contacted by satellite telephone, Taliban commanders stated that they had already mined routes to the town, which is about the size of Cambridge. They also claimed to have captured and destroyed a British tank.

"I have 300 Mujahideen with me," said Mullah Ahmad Muslim. "We have brought our best artillery. We have ZSU anti-aircraft guns in place to attack the helicopters."

But when asked whether the Taliban would stand and fight in Musa Qala, he did not rule out the possibility of a withdrawal into the Taliban-held mountains to the north. "The Mujahideen are ready to fight. It is hard to say whether we will make a tactical withdrawal. We will see."

One town resident said that Mullah Tor Jan, the overall Taliban commander in the town, had told local leaders that they would "save the town from destruction" by withdrawing once a "screen" of his fighters to the south of the town was breached by British forces.

However, on their website, the Taliban issued a blood-curdling rejoinder to the warnings of imminent attack. It read: "Foreign occupiers and their internal mercenaries are once again targeting Musa Qala.

...

It appears that neither side of this battle is familiar with the concept of operational security. The Taliban do not even have to wait for the story to be published two days before the attack, because the reporter calls their commander and asks what his plans are and even more incredibly he answers. No wonder the Brits put the Afghan troops in the lead on this attack.

Marines on the other hand can be fanatics about opsec.