Washington: Pentagon on Monday asserted that Taliban are on their heels as the momentum has been wrested from them but conceded that they are still a resilient and determined enemy.
"We really do believe that the momentum of the Taliban has not only been thwarted, it is being thrust back. We believe that they are in a much weaker position as we head into the spring than they were even as little as a year ago in the last Spring," the Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt John Kirby, told reporters during an off camera news conference.
"We were very very active in the winter months, conducting dozens of operations with not only Afghan partners, coalition partners, but inter-agency partners to try to thwart any momentum that they might have coming into this spring," he said responding to reporters` questions.
Referring to some of the attempted high profile attacks in the last one month, Kirby said they were completely ineffective.
"So we really do believe that they are on their heels and that it is much more difficult for them to move around to resource their plan...That does not mean that they are still not going to try, does not mean that they are still not a resilient, determined enemy, we understand that, but we really do believe that we have wrested the momentum from the Taliban," Kirby said.
The US Defence Secretary, Leon Panetta, he said has complete trust and confidence in the military chain of command and its leadership in Afghanistan that they would continue to put pressure on the enemy and support reconciliation and reintegration process, Kirby said.
PTI
