A U.S. soldier of the 82nd Airborne patrols as Afghan children asks for candies in the Kandahar province of Southern Afghanistan. The 4,500 NATO and 1,000 Afghan troops launched the alliance's largest-ever offensive in Afghanistan last week in neighboring Helmand province.

Kabul, Afghanistan ? Lala Jan is a hostage in his own home.

In his village in the southern province of Helmand, Taliban gunmen patrol the streets and NATO warplanes scour the skies. Jan fears both, so in recent months the 28-year-old farmer has hardly stepped beyond his front door.

“I don’t go out,” Jan said in a telephone interview, “because I don’t want any problems.”

But right now, problems are tough to avoid in Helmand. As the weather improves and Afghanistan enters its traditional fighting season, the province is shaping up as the war’s central battlefield in a critical test for a country increasingly teetering under the pressure of a violent insurgency.

With a weak government presence in Helmand, the Taliban has gained more control there than in any other province in the five years since U.S.-led forces ejected the Islamic militia from power, according to foreign and Afghan officials.

In many villages, Taliban gunmen patrol day and night, residents said in telephone interviews. Some government supporters have been beheaded or hanged. Men who shave their beards, in breach of Taliban orders, have faced public whippings.

Meanwhile, NATO forces, now commanded by a four-star U.S. general, are focused on Helmand for their largest Afghan offensive ever. In the past week, NATO planes have carried out frequent airstrikes, trying to loosen the Taliban’s grip before troops move in for what is expected to be intense ground combat this spring and summer.

Caught in between are Helmand residents who say they are fed up with both sides.

“Most of the people want the situation to be resolved very soon,” said Nematullah Ghaffari, a cleric from the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, who represents the area in parliament. “Whether they want the government to take over or the Taliban, they are stuck in the middle right now, and they are suffering a lot.”

But a quick resolution is unlikely, given the degree of instability.

“Helmand is everything in one: drug trafficking, weak government, hard-core Taliban who are spreading fear,” said Talatbek Masadykov, chief of political affairs for the U.N. mission in Afghanistan. “The perception of many of the local people is that Helmand is almost lost.”

Masadykov said he thinks Helmand still can be turned around. The Taliban, he said, is actually fairly weak and enjoys little popular support. But he said the government is not providing residents adequate protection and that winning the province back would take “immediate, urgent changes within the province.”