British paratroopers have killed six Taleban fighters trying who were to destroy a dam and power plant in southern Helmand province.
The paratroopers were dropped into the area by Chinook helicopter after the Taleban had been trying to shell the Kajaki dam and power plant for almost a week.
“They were not having much success hitting the dam,” Captain Drew Gibson, a British military spokesman, told The Times. “When our team went in they tried to mortar them. We returned fire and destroyed the mortar, a vehicle and six Taleban.”
Brigadier Ed Butler, the Commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said that the opening stages of Operation Mountain Thrust had gone better than expected.
Eleven thousand British, American, Canadian and Afghan troops are taking part in the operation to root out the Taleban in four southern provinces.
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“Opportunities have presented themselves and we have taken them,” Brigadier Butler said. “We are going out looking for the Taleban and we are detaining them.”
British forces have already set up a number of forward operating bases in areas that were Taleban strongholds.
Brigadier Butler said: “We have done far more of the mission now than we thought we would do. We are doing it a lot earlier, we have got into far more places, we have challenged insecurity in far more places than we anticipated and we have got a force laid down that I am very comfortable with, which is already making a difference.”
He added: “We are probably where I thought we would be in about August time.”