Local Kunar officials said that the Afghan National Army (ANA), Afghan National Police (ANP), and National Directorate of Security (NDS), began a joint clearing operation codenamed "Toffan Dara" (Storm Valley) in the Chapa Dara district of eastern Kunar province early Wednesday.
Officials said the operation, intended to clear the area of insurgents, was launched at 5:00am on Wednesday morning and has already seen one Afghan soldier injured.
"During the operation, a number of Taliban insurgents attacked a convoy of the forces and started a gun-battle, injuring one soldier. The insurgents have escaped from the area but the operation is still underway," said Mohammad Haroon Yousufzai, the head of the Military Media Office in eastern Afghanistan.
Mr. Yousufzai said that there was no information available about the Taliban casualties as a result of the operation. However, more security forces have been deployed in the place of action.
"More security forces have been deployed. If the forces need air support, we will seek help from NATO," he said.
Although the Afghan Air Force has seen progress in recent years, according to experts, it still relies heavily on coalition forces for "close-air support" – the ability to aid ground troops by attacking nearby targets.
Chapa Dara district, the arena of the "Toffan Dara" operation shares its border with eastern Nuristan province, which is regarded as one of the most volatile provinces in the country.
The Afghan security forces have ramped up operations across the country to clear vulnerable areas of insurgents in preparation for the upcoming 2014 elections.
Early this week, in light of what they deemed a deteriorating security situation and that they feared could derail the election process, the Afghan Senate demanded that security officials chalk out a proper strategy to improve security ahead of the spring.
The Senators had said that the "election should be held on time." There are numerous security concerns that remain to be addressed, especially in the outlying provinces.
There are over 350,000 Afghan soldiers fighting the insurgents across Afghanistan. Foreign troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, after handing over full security responsibility to the Afghan forces. Though coalition officials maintain that the nearly all operation oversight has been handed over to Afghans already.