“Operations to push the Taliban out of their Afghan stronghold of Kandahar are under way and will steadily build in the months ahead, military officials said Thursday, APA reports quoting AFP. The military and political efforts against the Taliban around Kandahar, Afghanistan’s third biggest city and the militia’s spiritual capital, are the next step in the US-led strategy to end a war now in its ninth year. NATO was also planning an anti-Taliban offensive in the north this year, a German general told German ARD public radio from Kabul.” (03/19/10)