'taliban surrender only a matter of time'

Before we accept any surrender from the taliban we should make sure they are so demoralized that they won't want to fight anymore.

The Australian commander who led a daring mission into the heart of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan says insurgent forces are burning their bridges with local Afghanis and are becoming increasingly irrelevant in the country.

Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Yeaman returned home to Brisbane last night with a rare positive message from the war-torn nation, where six Australian soldiers have been killed since 2002.

Surrender by the Taliban, he says, is "only a matter of time".

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"Some of the locals we are working with in the area are saying that it's the safest their particular area has been in 30 years," Lieutenant Colonel Yeaman told brisbanetimes.com.au from Brisbane airport.

"In resorting to things such as IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and rocket attacks they are actually being very indiscriminate and some of those attacks are hurting the locals more than hurting us.

"We were at an IED site where it had been set off by a local and killed six locals, wounding five (others). As a result, the local population actually ran the Taliban out of town."

Lt Col Yeaman has just completed a six month deployment as the commander of Reconstruction Task Force 4, based out of Tarin Kowt in the province of Oruzgan in southern Afghanistan.

The task force includes units from the Enoggera-based 6th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment, 6th Engineer Support Regiment and 2/14th Light Horse Regiment as well as soldiers from the Sydney-based 3rd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment.