Grange: Kandahar not final objective

David Grange is a former U.S. Army major general and now a military analyst for CNN.

UPDATE: Some are saying this is the final episode, as the coalition tightens the noose on Kandahar -- that this is the culmination of the fight to take down the Taliban and al Qaeda.

It's probably going to be a bit of a fight, but it's definitely not the final fight, because I think you still have some hard-core pockets of resistance throughout the area, especially on the Pakistan border.

TACTICS: Even though Kandahar is the focus of the next major anti-Taliban operation, it's to be seen what the American involvement will be. I don't think you'll see, for instance, Marines in the city of Kandahar itself. I think you'll see them more in a supportive role, supporting by fire.

I think that's why we've doubled the number of attack helicopters in the airstrip there 70 miles south of Kandahar, where the Marine forward operating base is located.

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They can go out and they can destroy anybody that tries to break out and leave like they did in Kabul. I think those guys are there to destroy any forces that try to leave -- either leave by fighting their way out or leave because of a deal cut.

I still think the Northern Alliance will be the ones that have to deal with Kandahar itself and I think that's appropriate because when they know the people they can negotiate -- either surrender or side-changing -- much better than we can.

The coalition definitely is a deterrent, and the idea that it's there -- the U.S. Marines and other international coalition partners -- really helps to keep the pressure on the Taliban and especially the hard-core legions of Arabs and other mercenaries that are in the country, supposedly in Kandahar.

We have two anti-Taliban commanders, south of Kandahar attacking the airport, and about 20 to 25 miles to the north putting the pressure on from the higher ground. So you have two different military organizations of anti-Taliban squeezing in on Kandahar.

They've severed or occupied a lot of the roads leading into the town. Evidently there's still one major road open. That may be on purpose so it can be used by the anti-Taliban forces later. Or it could be where they just can't keep parts of that road.

STRATEGY: Even when Kandahar falls, it's still far from over, because we still have these complexes that must be searched and destroyed. Not searching every cave, but those where there's good intelligence that there's something there or was there. Because even if they have left, there's always stuff you can pick up, especially if they left in a hurry. They can provide you information for future operations, just like they found the weapons of mass destruction in Kabul.

Remember the objective is to destroy the al Qaeda network, deny Afghanistan as a sanctuary to al Qaeda, which they've just about done, and to use the Afghanistan operation as a deterrent to other countries around the world that harbor terrorists. And I think that has happened.

So the missions are kind of falling into place. They're accomplishing their missions, but not all the objectives are met yet.

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