New York: US military officials believe that the Taliban fighters are preparing to launch an offensive against the US and its Afghan allies this spring, a media report said today (Mar 01, 2004).

Quoting a senior US military official, 'Time' magazine says that at the same time US forces will mount a spring offensive of their own, in tribal areas along the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan, to flush out Osama bin Laden.

"As the weather gets better and as people are better able to travel in the rougher terrain, we expect an increase in violence," General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said.

The US is not expected to openly announce the true intent of the offensive, which will focus on an area stretching from Jalalabad, near Afghanistan's Eastern border, to Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold in the South.

While the US pushes East along a broad front, Pakistani forces will push West, flooding the tribal areas in what Lt General David Barno, commander of US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, calls a "hammer and anvil" strategy.

A small contingent of special-operations troops taken out of Afghanistan for the War in Iraq, including members of the elite Joint Task Force 121, which helped track down Saddam Hussein, will be reinserted for the offensive, 'Time' said quoting the official.