Afghan officials said the Taliban have now been cleared from the villages outside the city.

Taliban rebels, seeking to overthrow President Hamid Karzai's government, stepped up their insurgency in southern and eastern provinces and increasingly targeted the capital, Kabul, with suicide bombings in recent months.

While acknowledging the jail break and fighting posed difficulties, Wood said the international community wouldn't allow the district to fall to the insurgents. Our unified assessment in Kabul is that the Taliban is weaker in 2008 than it was at the beginning of the fighting season in 2007. The Islamist fighters last year lost districts and the U.S. has intelligence of ``some dissatisfaction among the rank and file of the Taliban with their focus on terrorism against innocent civilians.

NATO leads a force of more than 53,000 soldiers battling the Taliban.