The Taliban collection (2006 onwards)

[Norfolk]

This actually first appeared on the 20th in another paper:

"Taliban fielded battalion-size force only 10 months after rout, reports say", by Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press (in the The Globe and Mail),
21 August, 2008:

OTTAWA -- Taliban militants reportedly amassed a 600-strong fighting force and dragged out bigger weapons only 10 months after being routed by NATO forces in a landmark 2006 battle west of Kandahar, newly released documents have revealed.

More at the link. During the summer of 2006 (OP MEDUSA), coalition forces bagged a Taleban force of some 400-500 men operating in and around Panjwai out of some 2,000 Taleban believed to be in the region. Early on in the operation, a force of some 100 Taleban repulsed a Canadian rifle company (leading a battle group) attempting an "unopposed" river crossing (higher had prevented proper reconnaissance from being performed prior to the attack). The Taleban got very comfortable moving around in such large units of 100 or more in Helmand and Kandahar Provinces, and this led to some coalition forces abandoning far-flung outposts or turning them over to PMC's due to lack of manpower and difficulties in reinforcing or relieving said outposts in contact.

As the article at the link points out, the released DND documents confirm that southern Afghanistan has served as a sort of proving ground for Taleban tactics and operations using company-sized elements, with the potential to operate at battalion-level. With the Taleban increasingly operating in company-sized elements in the East now for some time, might this open the way for battalion-level ops in the not-so-distant future? At Panjwai in 2006, the Taleban got clobbered when they did so, but conditions in the East are considerably different from the South, the generally much closer terrain just for starters (not to mention proximity to refuges and bases in Pakistan).