Another joint offensive against Taliban militants began in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province late on Wednesday, a source in Afghanistan's defense ministry reported.

The source, who declined to be named, said it was the second largest offensive since NATO and Afghan forces had begun Operation Moshtarak ("together" in the Dari language) in the neighboring Helmand province in February, in a bid to clear the area of insurgents and restore a functioning social infrastructure.

The source said that some very hard fighting is ahead, explaining that unlike Helmand, Kandahar is largely a "green zone," covered in woods and strips of irrigated land, providing a natural hideout for the Taliban.

The province showed the most resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) currently has some 89,000 troops in Afghanistan, with most of them deployed in the country's volatile south and east. U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to send an additional 30,000 soldiers to the war-ravaged country in the first part of 2010 to defeat the Taliban and establish law and order. Other NATO members have said they will send 7,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

KABUL, March 18 (RIA Novosti)