The Taliban has deployed 10 000 fighters for a spring offensive of ”bloody attacks” against foreign troops in Afghanistan, a rebel commander said on Friday. More than 4 000 people, a quarter of them civilians, were killed in fighting last year, the most violent year since the Taliban were ousted in 2001. Nato commanders warn this year could be just as bad or worse.

More than 1 000 villagers have fled a southern Afghan town as Taliban fighters dig in to repel Nato efforts to drive them out, residents and officials said on Wednesday. Helmand provincial governor Haji Assadullah Wafa told Reuters that a military operation would soon be launched to recapture Musa Qala.