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Special forces say they are winning the battle against Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan Taliban leaders are being “decimated” by special forces in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, where more than 9,000 British troops are deployed, US and UK commanders have said. They say the next few months will test the strength of the Taliban-led insurgency. “We will see what [the Taliban] bring back to the battlefield in the spring,” said Major General Richard Mills of the US marines, commander of nearly 30,000 British and US troops in Helmand. He was speaking via videolink to London. Echoing the comments, Brigadier George Norton, Mills’s deputy, said the coming months would reveal how resilient the insurgency is. Major General John Lorimer, chief military spokesman for the British chief of defence staff, General David Richards, said large caches of weapons and equipment for making improvised explosive devices were discovered by 1st battalion Royal Irish Regiment in Helmand last month. More than 500 soldiers of the regiment, using 15 helicopters, with fast jets providing cover, also took part in an assault on what was described as an insurgent haven in Helmand’s Nad-e-Ali district. It was the regiment’s biggest operation since it crossed the Rhine in 1945, the MoD said. Mills sidestepped the question when asked when the Afghan army and police would take responsibility for Helmand’s security. The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has said he will announce on 21 March the start of a process of transferring responsibility for security to Afghan forces. The process is due to end in 2014, when the British and US governments say their forces will withdraw from a frontline combat role. The number of UK and US forces in Afghanistan is likely to start being reduced later this summer, after a much-hoped-for success against the insurgency. The number will then be gradually reduced until the end of 2014, when the main task of all foreign troops there will be to train Afghan security forces. Taliban Afghanistan Military Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk