Well, as the press speaks of a big Taliban offensive in Afghanistan, it seems like the Taliban are having the same luck with their strategy:
A "very important" Taliban commander was captured in some of the fiercest fighting in Afghanistan in years that has left nearly 200 rebels dead, officials said.
The identity of the man caught in Kandahar province could not be released on security grounds, provincial governor Assadullah Khalid said, after reports he was Mullah Dadullah, credited as one of the masterminds of the Taliban insurgency launched nearly five years ago.
The man was badly wounded in a battle in Kandahar's Panjwayi that started on Wednesday and was fought by Taliban rebels who had come from across Afghanistan, Khalid told reporters. Around 100 were killed, he said, upping a previous figure of 18.
The US-led coalition helping to fight Taliban rebels announced meanwhile that 60 "enemy" were killed in a separate battle on Wednesday in neighbouring Helmand province. Afghan officials had said about 40 were killed.
The new tolls took past 190 the number of insurgents killed in two days of clashes between security forces and Taliban rebels in some of the heaviest fighting since the regime was toppled in 2001 by a US-led invasion.
I read elsewhere that we have some doubts about the status of the Taliban guy captured, but the enemy death toll is solid, it seems, and can't be too good for their recruiting.
If this is what their offensives look like, more power to them. When they mass, the usual result is that the "target" calls for help and then ground and air support comes in to repel the attackers and chase them down to kill them in large numbers.
As an aside, given that we are out looking for the enemy now, this doesn't seem so much like an offensive by the enemy but a low density mutual slashing. We are on the move more than the enemy, so this seems more like a meeting engagement if you have to categorize it.
Anyway, this current enemy activity will continue until the weather turns cold or they get tired of dying in large numbers.
Not that I'm trying to overstate the impact of these casualties on the enemy. With enough money, the enemy will have the ability to go into the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan and recruit more poor cannon fodder for new attacks. Body counts mean they aren't beating us--which is important; but the situation will only settle down into the usual tribal violence with no particular direction aimed against the nominally central government when the paymasters and/or leaders of the enemy get tired of a futile fight that might only end suddenly and badly with a PGM dropping out of nowhere on their heads.
UPDATE: Roggio (via Instapundit) notes that the various battles and skirmishes are hardly part of a grand coordinated Taliban offensive. Get a grip people It amazes me that some people can't see our plan and progress for victory in Iraq yet see deep plans in any spasm of activity that our enemies throw out.
