NATO forces face Taliban mines, resistance

By Alfred De Montesquiou, Associated Press Writer –

Sun Feb 14, 2010, 8:05 am ET

MARJAH, Afghanistan –

It could take weeks to reclaim the Taliban stronghold of Marjah, a top Marine commander said Sunday as thousands of U.S. troops and Afghan soldiers fought for a second day in NATO's most ambitious effort yet to break the Taliban fighters' grip on Afghanistan's dangerous south.

"That doesn't necessarily mean an intense gun battle, but it probably will be 30 days of clearing," Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson said. "I am more than cautiously optimistic that we will get it done before that."

Squads of Marines and Afghan soldiers occupied a majority of Marjah, but sporadic gun battles erupted as pockets of militants dug in and fought. Sniper fire forced Nicholson to duck behind an earthen bank in the northern part of the city where he toured the tip of the Marines' front line held by Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines.

"The fire we just took reflects how I think this will go — small pockets of sporadic fighting by small groups of very mobile individuals," he said.

Afghan officials said Sunday that at least 27 Taliban fighters have been killed in the operation. NATO reported two troop casualties from the first day of the offensive — an American and a Briton. Seven civilians have been wounded but there were no reports of deaths, Helmand provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi said.

The offensive, called "Moshtarak," or "Together," is the biggest joint operation since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, with 15,000 troops involved, including some 7,500 in Marjah itself.

Between 400 and 1,000 Taliban fighters were believed to be holed up in Marjah, a town of 80,000 people.

The second day of the massive NATO offensive was marked by painstaking searches from compound to compound as Marines and Afghan troops used metal detectors and sniffer dogs to locate explosives rigged to blow.

They also encountered pockets of resistance, fighting off sniper attacks, as they moved deeper into the town.

"We're in the majority of the city at this point," said Lt. Josh Diddams, a Marine spokesman. He said the nature of the resistance has changed from the initial assault, with insurgents now holding ground in some neighborhoods.

"We're starting to come across areas where the insurgents have actually taken up defensive positions," he said. "Initially it was more hit and run."

Meanwhile, thousands of other British, Afghan and U.S. troops fanned out across the Nad Ali district to the north of the mud-brick town.

Explosions from controlled detonations of bombs and other explosives were being heard about every 10 minutes in the area.

"There's really a massive amount of improvised explosive devices," Nicholson said. "We thought there would be a lot, but we are finding even more than expected."

NATO forces uncovered 250 kilograms (550 pounds) of ammonium nitrate and other bomb-making materials while clearing a compound in Marjah, a coalition statement said. They also found a weapons cache in Nad Ali that included artillery rounds, pressure plates and blasting caps.

NATO said it hoped to secure Marjah, the largest town under Taliban control, set up a local government and rush in development aid in a first test of the new U.S. strategy for turning the tide of the 8-year-old war.

The United Nations said an estimated 900 families had fled the Marjah area and were registered for emergency assistance in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) away.

At least two shuras, or council meetings, have already been held with local residents — one in Nad Ali and the other in Marjah itself, NATO said in a statement. Discussions have been "good," and more are planned in coming days as part of a larger strategy to enlist community support for the NATO mission, it said.

President Barack Obama was keeping a close watch on combat operations, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan was to brief Obama on Sunday.

In Marjah, most of the Marines said they would have preferred a straight-up gunbattle to the "death at every corner" crawl they faced as they made their way through the town.

"Basically, if you hear the boom, it's good. It means you're still alive after the thing goes off," said Lance Corp. Justin Hennes, 22, of Lakeland, Florida.

Local Marjah residents crept out from hiding after dawn Sunday, some reaching out to Afghan troops partnered with Marine platoons.

"Could you please take the mines out?" Mohammad Kazeem, a local pharmacist, asked the Marines through an interpreter. The entrance to his shop had been completely booby-trapped, without any way for him to re-enter his home, he said.

___

Associated Press writers Noor Khan in Kandahar, Rahim Faiez and Heidi Vogt in Kabul, and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.

Afghanistan war: Marjah battle as tough as Fallujah, say US troops

By Julius Cavendish Julius Cavendish –

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Kabul, Afghanistan –

Thousands of US and Afghan troops ground their way towards the center of the Taliban stronghold of Marjah today despite encountering fierce sniper fire and even greater numbers of home-made bombs, booby traps, and minefields than anticipated.

US Marines raised an Afghan flag inside the town limits but pockets of Taliban militants dug in, with some veterans comparing the intensity of the fighting to that encountered when they stormed the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2005.

"In Fallujah, it was just as intense. But there, we started from the north and worked down to the south. In Marjah, we're coming in from different locations and working toward the centre, so we're taking fire from all angles," Captain Ryan Sparks told Reuters.

The operation to clear Taliban insurgency from their biggest stronghold in Helmand province looks increasingly like an acid test of Western military and political strategy in Afghanistan, with the outcome likely to deal a powerful propaganda blow one way or the other.

With US General Stanley McChrystal’s reinvigorated counter-insurgency campaign placing the emphasis on protecting communities rather than killing militants, the first measure of success for the thousands of US, NATO, and Afghan troops involved in Operation Moshtarak (the Dari word for ‘together’) will be avoiding civilian casualties.

The vast majority of Marjah’s civilian inhabitants, of whom there are somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000, have stayed put after a NATO information campaign entreated them to "keep your heads down."

Afghan officials say the involvement of Afghan forces in unprecedented numbers – 60 percent of the front-line forces are said to be Afghan – will help alleviate the threat because Afghan soldiers are better able to distinguish between “terrorists and farmers.”

Civilian casualties a key metricSo far this advantage and the coalition’s tactics of attacking in overwhelming numbers but with a restrained use of its overwhelming firepower has largely worked, with civilian casualties limited to 12 killed when a rocket landed 300 meters (nearly 1,000 feet) from its target, and seven wounded in separate incidents.

In an indication of how important the issue of civilian casualties may prove to be, General McChrystal promptly offered his apologies to President Hamid Karzai and launched an investigation into the incident. Mr. Karzai only signed off on the operation hours before it began and senior members of his administration reportedly had reservations about advising inhabitants to shelter in their homes rather than fleeing Marjah.

Ghafar Jan, a 32-year old farm laborer living in Marjah, reached by telephone, said that powerful explosions had cast a pall of dust and smoke over the town, and that the “lightning” of rockets was visible from his house.

“The Taliban will fight until the last minute because the attack is coming from all directions so I don’t think they can fall backward to safety,” Jan said. “I don’t know what will happen. God knows what will happen.”

Taliban bravado?The top Taliban commander in Marjah, Mullah Abdul Razaq Akhund, insisted that his fighters had pushed back the NATO and Afghan allies who were, he claimed, involved in a face-saving operation masking their defeat in Afganistan.

“Tens of foreign soldiers have been killed by roadside bombs and we have also destroyed many vehicles. By the grace of God we have had few casualties,” he said.

He was contradicted by NATO reports that two of its troops — one American, one British - had been killed in the fighting.

Meanwhile, Helmand Governor Mohammad Gulab Mangal said that a government-in-waiting is ready to sweep in once coalition forces have cleared the town of Taliban, bringing with them up to 2,000 Afghan police to provide security. Civil servants and development specialists will organize the local administration. Previous town officials were killed, co-opted by the insurgents, or forced to flee. With a new administration, in theory, will come schools, hospitals, and jobs.

“The most important thing will be the aftermath,” says Haroun Mir, an Afghan analyst in Kabul. “How quickly will the coalition countries fix the town? How quickly will the Afghan government provide services to people? And how quickly will they be able to provide justice and security?”

Mir notes that in the past some police officers had pursued vendettas against people they accused of colluding with the Taliban.North of Marjah, coalition forces are also battling Taliban militants in Nad-i-Ali district, supposedly an area under government control. Although fighting there has been less intense than some of the battles raging in Marjah, it is an indication of the difficulty of holding ground, let alone building on it.

Of particular importance in any area restored to government control will be providing alternative livelihoods to poppy farmers: central Helmand is a drugs-producing hub with many locals complicit in the narcotics industry. “I’m sure they are well-prepared for that,” says Mir.

“All we want is peace,” said Ghafar Jan, the farm labourer. “People are tired of fighting, people are hungry now, and there is no medicine for the sick. I don’t care who is in control. I want those who can bring peace, justice and Sharia law."