NATO forces are leading a new push against insurgents in Kandahar city and surrounding areas, dubbed Operation Dragon Strike, officials said.

Dragon Strike was the latest phase of Operation Hamkari, seen as a last-ditch effort to eliminate the Taliban from Kandahar and the surrounding areas of Zhari, Panjawyi and Arghandab, long regarded as Taliban hotbeds.

Kandahar deputy police chief Fazil Ahmad Sherzad said that 900 police officers joined NATO and Afghan soldiers on Monday.

"The aim of this operation is to disrupt Taliban, clean the insurgents out of villages, and expand law and order. Reconstruction projects will follow," he told AFP.

Afghan General Abdul Hamid said the operation could take more than two months to complete, and involved two battalions of Afghan soldiers.

NATO said Afghan soldiers outnumbered international forces in the military phase of the operation, which was launched in the early hours of Saturday.

"We expect hard fighting," said German Brigadier General Josef Blotz, spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

"There have been a number of shaping operations to soften insurgent defences in preparation for the harder fighting," he said in a statement.

"Afghan and coalition forces are destroying Taliban fighting positions so they will not have anywhere left to hide."

Operation Hamkari, which means cooperation in Dari, was launched about five months ago as the United States was deploying an extra 30,000 troops, mostly to Kandahar province, in preparation for the final push against the Taliban.

The Taliban movement was launched in Kandahar province and it has long considered the region as its fiefdom.

Clearing Kandahar city and its outlying suburbs of insurgents is seen as key to the success of the war against the Taliban, now dragging towards its 10th year.

The United States and NATO have 150,000 troops in Afghanistan fighting the insurgency, with deployments concentrated on the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand.

The regions being targeted in Dragon Strike are said to be mined with improvised bombs, the Taliban's weapon of choice, which cause the majority of NATO deaths and injuries.

Pakistan protests over cross-border NATO air strikes
Islamabad (AFP) Sept 28, 2010 - Pakistan on Monday denounced cross-border air strikes by NATO helicopters pursuing militants as a violation of its sovereignty as the alliance said its forces had the right to defend themselves.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is fighting a Taliban-led insurgency in neighbouring Afghanistan, said the attack Friday left more than 30 rebels dead.

Pakistan said the helicopters intruded into its territory twice from the eastern Afghan province of Khost as they chased the militants.

"These incidents are a clear violation and breach of the UN mandate under which ISAF operates," foreign office spokesman Abdul Basit said in a statement.

ISAF said the choppers "engaged a significant number of insurgents" after a remote Afghan forces outpost in Khost province came under attack.

"An air weapons team in the area observed the enemy fire, and following International Security Assistance Force rules of engagement, crossed into the area of enemy fire," it said in a statement.

ISAF aircraft then fired on the militants killing more than 30, the statement said, adding that two helicopters returned to the border area on Saturday and killed several more insurgents.

"Initial reports indicate no civilians were injured or killed during either operation," the ISAF statement said. The force later added that no ground troops had crossed the border during the operation.

"The helicopters briefly crossed the border to engage the threat to the outpost," an ISAF spokesman told AFP.

An angry Pakistan said ISAF's mandate "finishes" at the Afghan border.

"There are no agreed 'hot pursuit' rules. Any impression to the contrary is not factually correct. Such violations are unacceptable," the foreign office statement added.

It said ISAF had been asked not to participate in any military action that violates its UN mandate and infringes upon Pakistan's sovereignty.

"In the absence of immediate corrective measures, Pakistan will be constrained to consider response options," it warned.

Responding to Islamabad's protest, NATO said its forces have a right to self-defence.

"ISAF forces must and will retain the authority, within their mandate, to defend themselves in carrying out their mission," a NATO official in Brussels told AFP.

The official expressed "regret that ISAF was unable to establish contacts with the Pakistani military, despite attempting to do so, as the incident was taking place."

He said ISAF would continue to work closely with its Pakistani partners, "both to stop cross-border attacks from Pakistan into Afghanistan and also to enhance coordination and communication."

The incident is likely to further complicate Washington's ties with Islamabad as well as Afghanistan's difficult relations with Pakistan.

Islambabad last week rejected revelations by famed Watergate journalist Bob Woodward that the CIA runs a secret Afghan paramilitary force that hunts down Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in covert operations in Pakistan.

US President Barack Obama has sought to pile pressure on militant havens in Pakistan through a stepped up bombing campaign using unmanned aircraft as well as US special forces' operations in Afghan territory.

The US military's presence in Afghanistan and its covert drone strikes in the border tribal belt are subject to sharp criticism and suspicion in Pakistan.

The rare NATO cross-border attacks came amid a surge in drone strikes in the tribal belt, which is considered a safe haven for Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked operatives and described by Washington as the most dangerous place on Earth.

Four militants were killed in a missile strike on Monday which was 19th attack in 24 days.

Under US pressure, Pakistan has stepped up military operations against largely homegrown militants.

Last year Pakistan launched its most ambitious military offensive yet against Taliban militants in South Waziristan, expanding the campaign to many of the other seven semi-autonomous tribal districts along the border.

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