Taliban 'on brink of defeat'?

Through massive attrition (some 7,000 dead bad guys in the past two years) and combat losses in the leadership, one British officer offers an optimistic assessment of the situation in Afghanistan.

Missions by special forces and air strikes by unmanned drones have "decapitated" the Taliban and brought the war in Afghanistan to a "tipping point", the commander of British forces has said.

The new "precise, surgical" tactics have killed scores of insurgent leaders and made it extremely difficult for Pakistan-based Taliban leaders to prosecute the campaign, according to Brig Mark Carleton-Smith.

In the past two years an estimated 7,000 Taliban have been killed, the majority in southern and eastern Afghanistan. But it is the "very effective targeted decapitation operations" that have removed "several echelons of commanders".

This in turn has left the insurgents on the brink of defeat, the head of Task Force Helmand said.

So much for the dreaded 'Spring Offensive' inaccurately predicted by the left-wing media every year.