Operation Mountain Thrust

MUSA QALA, Afghanistan -- Coalition troops in Afghanistan are readying for their biggest offensive since the fall of the Taliban five years ago.

Operation Mountain Thrust comes amid Afghan and coalition efforts to rein-in the recent spread of Taliban-led violence. Some eleven-thousand U-S, British, Canadian and Afghan troops hope to squeeze Taliban fighters in four volatile provinces where the military says most of the militants are massed.

Briefing reporters, a military spokesman says troops will try to take out the security threat posed by the rebel fighters and replace it with the proper conditions so that government forces and institutions along with humanitarian help can go in.