Taleban has '2,000 suicide bombers primed for spring war THE white flag of the Taleban still flies above the northern Helmand town of Musa Qala, as the group yesterday issued a chilling battle cry promising the bloodiest year since its fall in 2001, with legions of willing suicide bombers.
As the snows melt and the weather warms, NATO troops are preparing for the bloodiest spring offensive the Taleban has ever launched. It has arguably begun, with the brazen capture of Musa Qala. The attack began last Thursday, when hundreds of Taleban rebels rolled into the town in pick-up trucks, kidnapped government officials, bulldozed buildings, set up barricades and flew the white flag of the Taleban movement.
Taleban leaders promised this was only the beginning: "We have made 80 per cent preparations to fight American and foreign forces and we are about to start war," Mullah Hayatullah Khan, 35, a guerrilla leader, said from his rustic camp among the hills of eastern Afghanistan.
Mullah Khan boasted of having 2,000 suicide bombers ready to deploy against western forces, including British troops based in Helmand, and that his fighters were better trained and more eager for a fight than last year. The Scotsman