Taliban fighters in a pocket of Kandahar province in Afghanistan "paid a very heavy price" for going on the offensive against North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces, and the NATO response, called Operation Medusa, resulted in a Taliban retreat, General James Jones, commander of European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe for NATO, said during a Pentagon briefing on Wednesday. The arrival of 6,000 NATO troops in Kandahar was "a culture shock to the region," and the Taliban "decided to make a test case of this region," Jones said. While NATO forces were surprised by the level of violence, "what...