The Taleban operated in Kandahar and Helmand Provinces and other parts of the South in groups of some 400, possibly even 500, on occasion. Practically as Light Infantry Battalions, and at times they would manoeuvre groups of around 100 to ambush Allied troops, using the high ground (go figure). That mostly ended after Operation MEDUSA in the summer of 2006, and with the exception of Musa Qala, the Taleban more or less cooled it after that, until recently of course. As Eden noted, the willingness of the Taleban to come out and go toe-to-toe in a pseudo-conventional slugfest was what compelled the Canadians to drop the light stuff and go back to MBTs and tracked APCs; it also caused them to evacuate their more exposed outposts, permanently.

It seems that Pak Army junior officers (presumably no longer on Active Service) are displacing Arab and Central Asian (especially Tajiks) types as the main instructional cadres for the Taleban. This is not a good development. And I am getting the feeling again that some of the seemingly exaggerated news reports that came out of the Korengal Valley a few months ago were perhaps not as inaccurate as subsequent official reports asserted.