KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Officials in Kandahar province are stockpiling tents, medical supplies and foodstuffs ahead of the next major military offensive in southern Afghanistan.

The province's Afghan-Canadian governor, Tooryalai Wesa, said he expects as many as 10,000 people may have to flee their homes when the fighting starts.

That NATO and Afghan forces plan to target Kandahar province later this spring is perhaps the worst-kept secret in southern Afghanistan.

The Kandahar assault will follow on a massive military offensive raging in neighbouring Helmand province, where some 15,000 troops stormed the insurgent-held town of Marjah and the district of Nad Ali.

The Helmand attack, named Operation Mosktarek, is now in its second week.

More than 2,800 families -- averaging about five members each -- have been displaced before and during the fighting, according to the Afghan Organization of Human Rights and Environmental Protection, an independent group.

Some 2,000 displaced families are in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah getting help from Afghan and international charities, according to provincial authorities.

But some say they aren't getting any help.

Marjah resident Haji Gul Muhammad said he and his 42 family members haven't received any assistance since leaving their homes last week.

"Nothing has been given to us yet," he said. "We are eating with our relatives right now."

Kandahar's governor wants to make sure that doesn't happen in his province.

"We have to be prepared for at least 5,000 to 10,000 people," Wesa said.

"People will be moving from those districts toward the city in the first place, then maybe some other districts. So we have to be prepared."

As the provincial government braces for a looming humanitarian crisis, military planners are laying the groundwork for the big Kandahar offensive, figuring out which areas will be targeted and how many insurgents the troops may face.

"It's almost like sculpting something," said Canadian Brig.-Gen. Craig King, the coalition's director of future plans in southern Afghanistan.

"I take the block of marble and hew out the thing and get it to a point, and then there's some fine chisel ling and then the polishing is done by someone else," he said.

"I'd say if it was David, you'd know it was a man right now. Someone else is responsible for the fig leaf."

That work began last December when NATO moved more troops onto the roads of Kandahar, King said.

"Now they're on the roads maintaining freedom of movement ... for Afghans," he said.

"So that the archetypal story of putting your mother-in-law on the bus in Kabul, she has great confidence of arriving in Kandahar without being kidnapped, extorted or anything of the like."

The second phase of NATO's strategy in southern Afghanistan is playing out in Marjah, he added. Kandahar will be phase three -- and Canadian soldiers will be on the front lines.

"The Canadians are going to be in the thick of it," King said.

Expected to take part in the Kandahar assault are the 101st Airborne's second brigade, the 205 Corps of the Afghan army's first brigade and British troops.

The number of soldiers taking part in the Kandahar offensive will be "comparable" to the 15,000 that went into Helmand, King said.

That may or may not include a massive helicopter armada like there was in Helmand.

The operation in Helmand was concentrated on two major pockets of the insurgency. Militants are more dispersed in Kandahar, making it trickier to rout them.

"It's going to be different from what happened in Helmand because Kandahar's a different environment," King said.

"Kandahar's environment is a much more political environment. There's a lot more people. I think it's fair to say that the makeup around the area here in terms of tribal influences and whatnot is certainly different and probably much more complex than it was elsewhere.

"So that just means that we have to start earlier."

NATO is loathe to see any civilian bloodshed in the Kandahar operation lest the alliance face more backlash like it did after non-combatants died in the Helmand fighting.

Many Afghans -- including President Hamid Karzai -- were angered by Operation Moshtarak's civilian death toll. A pair of errant NATO rockets smashed into a house in Marjah, killing at least a dozen civilians.

The top military commander in Kandahar, Brig.-Gen. Daniel Menard, wouldn't rule out air strikes in the coming offensive.

"I'm not prepared to tell you that air would not be used. But ... it cannot be the sole fire power that will be used," he said.

"This is certainly not the way that we've been doing it in the past, and this summer will not be different. ...

"But the reality is, when the Taliban and the insurgents are hiding along local populations, it remains extremely difficult to eliminate the risk of civilian casualties entirely. I accept this. We do take every single measure in order to minimize those."