Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/military-forces-in-afghanistan-combat-resurgent-taliban Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript NATO and Afghan forces are launching operations aimed at pre-empting a springtime offensive by Taliban militants. Independent Television News reports on their efforts. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. ALEX THOMSON, ITV News Correspondent: We headed north, through and beyond Sangin Town, Sangin itself a ghost town. The Taliban pushed north of here; the population scattered by the fighting.And where there were Afghans, there are now Americans. Alpha Company of the 82nd have commandeered a compound used as a supply depot by Taliban fighters. Conditions are primitive: Water is scarce, the dust and the dirt everywhere. There are times to kill here, but the Taliban's hit-and-run tactics keep them an unseen force.These men tried to dominate the area. The commander of Alpha Company has come to appreciate that there are two types of Taliban fighter. CAPT. JOHN PELIKAN, U.S. Army: Well, it's been pockets. It's been different pockets. We've had some pockets where we experience more resistance than others. Some pockets, they'll be sending effective fire on us, and what I mean by "effective fire" is well-aimed fire. And when we experience those, we know we're dealing with foreign fighters.But the ones that are just pop shots and sporadic fire and not well-aimed fire, we know those are more of the tier 2 guys that the Taliban used to sort of throw at us in hordes. You know, they use the local farmers to sort of do their dirty work for them and then wait for the key shots from the foreign fighters to fight us.