The Times May 05, 2006
Taleban tell British to expect a river of blood
From Tim Albone in Kandahar
Extremists have issued threats as Britain takes over the Nato command in a violent Afghan region
BRITISH forces were placed on notice by the Taleban yesterday that their mission to impose security over southern Afghanistan would end in failure. On the day that Britain took command of the Nato forces that are being deployed in their thousands across the most volatile provinces of the country, the Taleban leadership sent them a chilling message. “Our activity will increase day by day. We now have the confidence to fight face-to-face and we have all the ammunition we need,” said Mohammad Hanif Sherzad, the spokesman for Mullah Omar, the reclusive, one-eyed Taleban leader, who has a $10 million (£5.4 million) bounty on his head.
“We will turn Afghanistan into a river of blood for the British,” he told The Times on a satellite telephone from an undisclosed location. “We have beaten them before and we will beat them again.”
That threat could once have been dismissed as the rantings of a dying movement that was driven from power by the US-led invasion of 2001. But today the warning will be taken seriously.
The Taleban have rearmed, recruited new followers and are planning a hot reception for the 8,000-strong Nato force from Britain, Canada and the Netherlands, which hopes to impose order on an area the size of Britain. The deployment is intended to allow America to scale back its combat troops and help the Afghan Government to extend its writ beyond Kabul, the capital.
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A Harrier then fired a rocket into the group of insurgents. This, too, failed to subdue a stubborn and apparently well-trained enemy.
A Harrier then dropped a 540lb (245kg) airburst bomb, which can destroy an area the size of a football pitch. “It’s not going to be pleasant after one of those has been dropped.” the pilot said. “Things went pretty quite.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2165731,00.html