**UK and other Nato troops are to launch an offensive to take back areas of southern Afghanistan, the British general in charge of forces there says.**Major General Nick Carter said the operation would “assert the control” of the Afghan government in parts of Helmand now controlled by the Taliban.
Nato leaders and Afghan army chiefs have briefed the Afghan president about the impending joint operation.
Maj Gen Carter leads 45,000 servicemen and women in southern Afghanistan.
“Helmand is very much a work in progress, with parts simply ungoverned,” he told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One in an exclusive interview.
"If they’re governed at all, it’s by parallel governments provided often by the Taliban.
“If we’re going to win the argument on behalf of the Afghan government… then we need to assert the government’s control over those areas which are at the moment ungoverned.”
‘Ownership of responsibility’
Maj Gen Carter, who took over the control of Nato forces in southern Afghanistan in late 2009, refused to say when the operation would begin.
“Afghans are standing up and being counted and that makes a big difference to what happens on the ground”
Maj Gen Nick Carter
The area likely to be targeted includes central Helmand and to the west and south west of Lashkagar, parts of which have not been under Afghan government control for months or in some cases years.
There are also signs Afghans in the area are taking a greater role in operations.
“[There has been] a transition, about the Afghans taking ‘ownership of the responsibility’”, Maj Gen Carter said.
"What I’ve been very struck about… is the way the provincial governor, Governor Mangal, and the Afghan army and Afghan police wish to take ownership of this problem.
"And when they do, there is an Afghan answer to the problem.
“Afghans are standing up and being counted and that makes a big difference to what happens on the ground.”
Minimise casualties
Maj Gen Carter said the strategy of increased co-ordination with local political and military forces was designed to help minimise casualties.
“What’s really important… is that if there is a conversation before the operation between the Afghans and the maliks, or the village leaders, on the ground, and it is explained to them what will happen when the government asserts control and authority over those areas, we often find the Afghans don’t fight - but they will welcome you,” he said.
Part of this strategy has also seen Maj Gen Carter brief the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, the governor of Helmand province, Gulab Mangal, and General Sher Muhammad Zazai, who is in charge of the Afghan army in the south of the country.
Similar co-ordination had led to recent successes, added Maj Gen Carter.
He pointed to an operation led by Canadian forces to the west of Kandahar in the past three months “where not a shot was fired”.
An operation by the Grenadier Guards in central Helmand province had been equally effective, he said.
“It was preceded by an Afghan-led conversation run by the district governor, and through that process you discover the Afghans welcome you in, rather than it becoming a fight,” Maj Gen Carter said.