With 4,500 foreign troops and 1,000 Afghan soldiers, 2007's Operation Achilles was the largest Nato-led operation in Afghanistan yet. The coalition was battling an estimated total of just 700 Taliban insurgents. Depending on whose numbers you trust, Operation Moshtarak faces with between one and two thousand Taliban. And it uses nearly three times the manpower Achilles did: 15,000 troops, 9,000 of them Afghans.

Graphic by Jez Burrows