US-led forces wind down Afghan assault

US-led forces were winding down one of their biggest offensives in Afghanistan on Saturday, but an official said it was a prelude to a larger assault on the Taliban bastion of Kandahar.
The two-week Operation Mushtarak -- Dari for "Together" -- symbolically ended Thursday when authorities hoisted the Afghan flag in Marjah, a poppy-growing southern area that had eluded government control for years.
A US commander in Kandahar said most combat operations had "subsided", although US, British and Afghan troops would still need several weeks to exert control over more remote villages in the targeted area in Helmand province.
"There will be some sporadic fighting, I believe, some tough areas where there are still a few holdouts," Brigadier General Ben Hodges told the PBS Newshour on US public television.
"I think most of the significant combat operations though will have subsided. I think the majority of the enemy has either been killed or driven out or blended back into the population," he said.
In fresh violence, a car ran over a roadside bomb laid by the Taliban in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, causing an explosion, which killed 11 civilians, a local official told AFP.
The incident took place in the restive province's Nawzad district, Daud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said.
Thousands of US, Nato and Afghan troops have been battling a major offensive against the Taliban in Helmand's Marjah and Nad Ali areas since Feberuary 13.
Helmand government spokesman Daud Ahmadi said Marjah was returning to "normal" but authorities were reluctant to return thousands of displaced villagers to their homes because of the innumerable mines left by the Taliban.
"At the moment the situation is normal in Marjah," he told AFP.