15,000-NATO-Afghan troops / 100,000 people / 2,000Taliban fighters / Hundreds of Helicopters* American soldiers said Saturday that firefights with the Taliban began sporadically but grew more frequent and more intense as the day went on.
> Late in the afternoon, insurgents and a company of Marines fought a two-hour gun battle at Marja’s northern edge.
> It ended when the Marines dropped a 500-pound bomb on the Taliban’s position.
* A local Taliban commander named Hashemi, said. “We are strong and we won’t give up. We will fight to death.”
* NATO troops in Marjah had been warning civilians by leaflets that they should try to find a safe place and stay indoors, in order to escape the worst of the battle and to minimise casualties.
* NATO forces had set up 11 outposts across Marja and two in the neighboring town of Nad Ali.
* From those posts, Marines and soldiers began to go on patrols, searching door to door for weapons and fighters.
* “I don’t have any information on the Taliban, neither where they are nor where they have gone,” said Palawan, a farmer in Marja
* “Our main goal in this joint operation is not to kill insurgents,” Defense Minister Mr. Wardak said. “In fact, our primary goal is to expand the government’s influence and protect the civilian population.”
* Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, a top Marine commander in the south, predicted it could take 30 days to clear Marjah because of all the hidden explosives.
27 killed as NATO's Afghan offensive enters day twoAfghanistan Sun Sunday 14th February, 2010 (IANS)
NATO's most ambitious offensive against Taliban strongholds in Helmand province entered its second day Sunday, with officials claiming 27 insurgents killed.
Thousands of US Marines, Afghan and British forces were inserted by dozens of helicopters and armoured vehicles into Marjah and Nad Ali districts in the southern province Saturday.
The military operation is the largest since the ouster of Taliban regime by a US-led invasion in late 2001.
NATO officials claimed early success as troops cleared 13 targeted locations in the two districts, strategically important bastions in the country's main opium-producing region.
'The operation is going on successfully,' Daoud Ahmadi, spokesman for Helmand's provincial governor, said. He said seven insurgents were killed since Saturday night, bringing the total Taliban death toll to 27.
He said the combined forces also discovered and destroyed more than 2,500 kg of explosives.
Two NATO soldiers, one British soldier and a US marine were also killed in the first day of the operation, Ahmadi said. The British Defence Ministry also confirmed in a statement posted on its website that a soldier from 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards was killed by an explosion in Nad Ali district.
General Abdul Rahim Wardak, Afghan defence minister, said in Kabul Saturday that there had been some injuries among Afghan forces.
Wardak said several hundred Taliban fighters were still in the area, while a large number of the insurgents had fled before the start of the operation, which was announced weeks prior. Other NATO and Afghan officials estimated that from 600 to 1,000 Taliban were entrenched in the two targeted districts.
A total of 15,000 troops, including US, Afghan, British, Canadian, Danish and Estonian personnel were mobilised for the operation.
The operation, dubbed Mushtarak or 'together', is centred on Marjah, inhabited by about 80,000 people, where Taliban-protect traffickers had set up the biggest drug market in the country.
Hundreds of local residents of Marjah and neighbouring Nad Ali have fled to provincial capital Lashkargah, but many others remained amid assurances by NATO officials that measures would be put in place to avoid civilian casualties.
Officials said roadside bombs had slowed the advance of combined forces moving through Marjah town.
Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousif Ahmadi, speaking by phone from an undisclosed location, said Sunday that their fighters had not retreated.
The combined forces held meetings with groups of Afghan local elders in the area, a NATO military statement said Sunday. 'More shuras (local councils) are anticipated in the coming days'. The offensive, a first test of new US strategy to turn the tide of the eight-year-war, aims to extend the Afghan government's authority in the Taliban-controlled areas and begin reconstruction to win the hearts and minds of civilians.
US President Barack Obama increased the US troop commitment by another 30,000 troops, bringing the US presence to 98,000 soldiers. The US and NATO together have around 113,000 troops currently in the country, and some NATO countries have pledged to send up to 7,000 more troops by this summer.
Service members and civilians caught in Afghan crossfireAfghanistan Sun Sunday 14th February, 2010
NATO officials have announced the deaths of Afghan civilians during the allied offensive against the Taliban in Helmand Province.
Two rockets, fired by NATO soldiers missed their intended Taliban target and instead struck a house in Marjah, killing twelve civilians.
The rockets landed about 300 metres from their intended target, hitting the civilians.
Ten of those killed were believed to be from the same family.
NATO's commander Gen Stanley McChrystal said his soldiers had been trying to increase their gains in routing the Taliban from the area when the accident happened.
In the massive coalition attack rockets and artillery flew in first big test of US President Barack Obama's new surge strategy for Afghanistan.
Rocket system suspended
NATO troops in Marjah had been warning civilians by leaflets that they should try to find a safe place and stay indoors, in order to escape the worst of the battle and to minimise casualties.
US Marines and British troops are trying to clear Marjah and Nad Ali district of booby traps planted by insurgents.
Many of the booby-traps have been pointed out to the troops by local civilians.
After the operation, NATO intends building a joint base with Afghan forces and police to patrol the area.
5February 15, 2010Afghan Civilians Killed in Offensive on Taliban
By ROD NORDLAND
KABUL, Afghanistan — The top United States commander in Afghanistan confirmed that a rocket went astray during operations in the Marja area of Helmand province, killing 12 civilians, according to a statement issued by the International Security Assistance Force and the Afghan Ministry of Defense.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the ISAF commander, ordered the withdrawal of the type of rocket launcher used in the incident, a high-mobility artillery rocket system (HIMARS), from operations “until a thorough review of this incident has been conducted,” the statement said.
The American commander, who has made reducing civilian casualties a cornerstone of his policy in Afghanistan, apologized to President Hamid Karzai for the incident. “We deeply regret this tragic loss of life,” General McChrystal said. “The current operation in central Helmand is aimed at restoring security and stability to this vital area of Afghanistan. It’s regrettable that, in the course of our joint efforts, innocent lives were lost.”
President Karzai, who has been critical of civilian casualties in the past, warned at the start of the operation to take the city of Marja back from the Taliban that coalition forces should make “every effort” to avoid civilian casualties.
The ISAF statement said the incident took place in Nad Ali district, where Marja is located, when coalition forces were responding to an attack on them from a compound where “insurgents were delivering accurate, direct fire on an Afghan-ISAF joint team.” They responded with the HIMARS but missed their target by 300 meters, ISAF said.
A total of 15,000 Afghan and foreign forces are involved in the Marja operation, which began Saturday, about half of them in Marja itself. The foreign forces include American Marines, who are leading the offensive, along with United States Army and British, Canadian, Danish and Estonian troops.
On the second day of Operation Moshtarak, which means “joint operation” in Dari, the troops continued searches of the area using both mounted and dismounted patrols, according to British Royal Air Force Flight Lt. Wendy Wheadon, a spokeswoman for ISAF.
The troops were looking for weapons and carrying out controlled explosions of caches of ammunition, Lieutenant Wheadon said, adding that there were scattered firefights throughout the day. “There have been combined forces who suffered injuries as a result.” She declined to be more specific on casualties.
Separately, ISAF issued a press release indicating that a non-American service member was killed Sunday by an improvised explosives device in southern Afghanistan, but did not specify whether that was as a result of the Marja offensive.
Two soldiers were killed in the first day of fighting in Marja, one American and one British.
Afghan officials put the death toll in the rocket incident at 10. “We just know that a rocket hit a civilian house and 10 people were killed,” said Daoud Ahmadi, spokesman for the governor of Helmand province, by telephone. “We are investigating to find out the details of how they were killed. We don’t even know if the rocket was from our side or the enemy. It was not an air strike for sure, it was a rocket that hit a civilian house in Marja.”ISAF said one Afghan national army soldier and one ISAF service member were injured by the insurgents in the incident leading to the rocket attack.
Although NATO officers have said they were refraining from air strikes except where necessary, residents in nearby communities said they saw numerous incidents of air raids on the first day of the action, but not on Sunday. ISAF said there has been no flight of residents from Marja as a result of the operation; previously Afghan government and ISAF officials had urged residents to remain in their homes.
So far, 25 Taliban insurgents had been killed in the fighting, according to Gen. Sher Mohammed Zazai, commander of the Afghan army’s 205th corps, which has five brigades of Afghan soldiers in the operation, with national police units attached to them. General Zazai said no Afghan soldiers or police had been killed so far. In the offensive, which began Saturday, American, Afghan and British troops seized crucial positions across the Taliban stronghold, encountering intense but sporadic fighting as they began the treacherous ordeal of house-to-house searches.
More than 6,000 American, Afghan and British troops came in fast early on Saturday, overwhelming most immediate resistance. But as the troops began to fan out on searches, fighting with Taliban insurgents grew in frequency and intensity across a wide area; the searches and fighting continued on Sunday.
The pattern suggested that the hardest fighting lay in the days to come.
American commanders said the troops had achieved every first-day objective. That included advancing into the city itself and seizing intersections, government buildings and one of the city’s main bazaars in the center of town.
Some Marines held meetings with local Afghans almost immediately to reassure them and to ask for help in finding Taliban and hidden bombs.
Mohammed Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman for Helmand Province’s governor, said Afghan and NATO forces had set up 11 outposts across Marja and two in the neighboring town of Nad Ali. “We now occupy all the strategic points in the area,” he said on Saturday.
From those posts, Marines and soldiers began to go on patrols, searching door to door for weapons and fighters. This phase of the operation, considered the most dangerous, was expected to last at least five days. The biggest concern was bombs and booby-traps, of which there were believed to be hundreds, in roads, houses and footpaths.
The invasion of Marja is the largest military operation of its kind here since the American-backed war began eight years ago. The area, about 80 square miles of farmland, villages and irrigation canals, is believed to be the largest Taliban sanctuary inside Afghanistan. Afghan and American commanders believe there are also a number of opium factories that the insurgents control to finance their war.
On the first full day of operations, much of the expected resistance failed to materialize. Certainly there was none of the eyeball-to-eyeball fighting that typified the battle for Falluja in Iraq in 2004, to which the invasion of Marja had been compared.
“Actually, the resistance is not there,” Abdul Rahim Wardak, the Afghan defense minister, said in a news conference Saturday in Kabul. “Based on our intelligence reports, some of the Taliban have left the area. But we still expected there to be several hundred. Just yesterday, we received reports that reinforcements had arrived from neighboring provinces.”Dozens if not hundreds of insurgents probably fled Marja in the days leading up to the assault, according to military officers and local residents. American and Afghan commanders hoped to achieve just that result when they took the unusual step of broadcasting their intention to invade Marja days ahead of time.
But it seemed likely that many Taliban were still in Marja, lying in wait. One resident interviewed by telephone said that many insurgents had stayed behind.
“I don’t have any information on the Taliban, neither where they are nor where they have gone,” said Palawan, a farmer in Marja who goes by one name. “I don’t think they have gone anywhere, because Marja has been surrounded by Afghan and foreign forces on every side.”
What has been advertised as the most important, and novel, aspect of the Marja operation got under way on Saturday. After clearing Marja, American and Afghan officials say, they intend to import an entire Afghan civil administration, along with nearly 2,000 Afghan police officers, to help keep the Taliban from coming back in. The first of those, about 1,000 Afghan paramilitary police, were scheduled to begin arriving within 24 hours.
In some parts of the town, American and Afghan troops began holding meetings with residents, trying to win the Afghans’ support. Previous operations to clear the Taliban from towns and cities have failed across Afghanistan, in large part because the Americans and Afghans have rarely left behind competent Afghan government or security forces to hold the places. That has meant that the Taliban have not stayed away for long. This time, in Marja, things are supposed to be different.
“Our main goal in this joint operation is not to kill insurgents,” Mr. Wardak said. “In fact, our primary goal is to expand the government’s influence and protect the civilian population.”
Afghans in Marja itself stayed mostly indoors in the first hours of the invasion. “Nobody can go out of his house,” said Mr. Palawan, the local farmer. “The government and the Taliban have told us to stay in our house. But there has been fighting in the area all morning.”
A local Taliban commander named Hashemi, also reached by telephone, said his men had fought through much of day, shooting at least six foreign soldiers. That claim could not be verified. Mr. Hashemi said that six of his own men had been killed. “The Taliban are still resisting,” Mr. Hashemi said. “We are strong and we won’t give up. We will fight to death.”
American soldiers said Saturday that firefights with the Taliban began sporadically but grew more frequent and more intense as the day went on. Late in the afternoon, insurgents and a company of Marines fought a two-hour gun battle at Marja’s northern edge. It ended when the Marines dropped a 500-pound bomb on the Taliban’s position.
C. J. Chivers contributed reporting from Marja, Dexter Filkins from Kabul, and an Afghan employee of The New York Times from Helmand Province.
Marines spearhead major Afghanistan offensive
MARJAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Marines spearheaded one of NATO's biggest offensives against the Taliban in Afghanistan on Saturday, in an early test of President Barack Obama's troop surge policy.
World
Marines in helicopters landed in Marjah district, the last big Taliban stronghold in Helmand province, in the first hours of a NATO campaign to impose government control on rebel-held areas before U.S. forces start a planned 2011 drawdown.
They fired at least four rockets at militants who attacked from compounds near the bazaar in Marjah town. Hours later, the area was still gripped by the firefight.
There was one Marine casualty in the unit in which a Reuters correspondent was embedded. In their house nearby, a family huddled in one room, laundry flapping on the line outside.
"We are currently moving to seize our objective. We have been in contact for five hours from the southwest, north and east and we are moving to push to finish securing the areas of insurgents still," Lieutenant Mark Greenlief told Reuters.
The Marines' first objective was to take over the town center, a large cluster of dwellings, and they called in two Harrier jets which flew over a Taliban position at the edge of the town center and fired on the militants with machineguns.
Like civilians in the district of up to 100,000 people, the U.S., British and Afghan troops risk being blown up by booby traps the Taliban are believed to have rigged in the hundreds to try to slow the advance.
A local Taliban commander, Qari Fazluddin, told Reuters earlier about 2,000 fighters were ready to fight.
Also in southern Afghanistan, five NATO troops, including three Americans, died after roadside bomb strikes, and a shooting in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, NATO said in a statement.
It was not clear whether they were killed during the offensive but the violence illustrated how vulnerable they still were after eight years of fighting the Taliban.
Helmand task force spokesman Lieutenant Colonel David Wakefield said a British solider was killed in an explosion while on vehicle patrol during the operation. It was not clear whether the solider was one of the five.
15,000 TROOPS IN OPERATION
NATO commander General Stanley McChrystal's counter-insurgency strategy emphasizes seizing population centers and avoiding combat in built-up areas whenever possible.
McChrystal has stressed precautions to avoid killing civilians, and the number of civilians killed by NATO troops has declined since he took command in mid-2009.
Heavy casualties may ruin the government's chance of gaining more support from Afghans. NATO forces advised civilians not to leave their homes. Some have already fled Marjah.
"The international forces must adopt certain procedures and mechanisms during operation in Marjah to protect civilians," Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in a statement.
In Marjah, resident Abdel Aziz, 16, told the Marines through a translator, "All the walls between the streets and houses are surrounded by bombs. Most people have gone to Lashkar Gah. That's where we want to go today."
An elderly neighbor emerged from her house and asked Marines not to fire at it. "This is just my house," she said.
In some parts of the town, American and Afghan troops began holding meetings with residents, trying to win the Afghans’ support. Previous operations to clear the Taliban from towns and cities have failed across Afghanistan, in large part because the Americans and Afghans have rarely left behind competent Afghan government or security forces to hold the places. That has meant that the Taliban have not stayed away for long. This time, in Marja, things are supposed to be different.
“Our main goal in this joint operation is not to kill insurgents,” Mr. Wardak said. “In fact, our primary goal is to expand the government’s influence and protect the civilian population.”
Afghans in Marja itself stayed mostly indoors in the first hours of the invasion. “Nobody can go out of his house,” said Mr. Palawan, the local farmer. “The government and the Taliban have told us to stay in our house. But there has been fighting in the area all morning.”
A local Taliban commander named Hashemi, also reached by telephone, said his men had fought through much of day, shooting at least six foreign soldiers. That claim could not be verified. Mr. Hashemi said that six of his own men had been killed. “The Taliban are still resisting,” Mr. Hashemi said. “We are strong and we won’t give up. We will fight to death.”
American soldiers said Saturday that firefights with the Taliban began sporadically but grew more frequent and more intense as the day went on. Late in the afternoon, insurgents and a company of Marines fought a two-hour gun battle at Marja’s northern edge. It ended when the Marines dropped a 500-pound bomb on the Taliban’s position.
C. J. Chivers contributed reporting from Marja, Dexter Filkins from Kabul, and an Afghan employee of The New York Times from Helmand Province.
Marines spearhead major Afghanistan offensiveMARJAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Marines spearheaded one of NATO's biggest offensives against the Taliban in Afghanistan on Saturday, in an early test of President Barack Obama's troop surge policy.
World
Marines in helicopters landed in Marjah district, the last big Taliban stronghold in Helmand province, in the first hours of a NATO campaign to impose government control on rebel-held areas before U.S. forces start a planned 2011 drawdown.
They fired at least four rockets at militants who attacked from compounds near the bazaar in Marjah town. Hours later, the area was still gripped by the firefight.
There was one Marine casualty in the unit in which a Reuters correspondent was embedded. In their house nearby, a family huddled in one room, laundry flapping on the line outside.
"We are currently moving to seize our objective. We have been in contact for five hours from the southwest, north and east and we are moving to push to finish securing the areas of insurgents still," Lieutenant Mark Greenlief told Reuters.
The Marines' first objective was to take over the town center, a large cluster of dwellings, and they called in two Harrier jets which flew over a Taliban position at the edge of the town center and fired on the militants with machineguns.
Like civilians in the district of up to 100,000 people, the U.S., British and Afghan troops risk being blown up by booby traps the Taliban are believed to have rigged in the hundreds to try to slow the advance.
A local Taliban commander, Qari Fazluddin, told Reuters earlier about 2,000 fighters were ready to fight.
Also in southern Afghanistan, five NATO troops, including three Americans, died after roadside bomb strikes, and a shooting in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, NATO said in a statement.
It was not clear whether they were killed during the offensive but the violence illustrated how vulnerable they still were after eight years of fighting the Taliban.
Helmand task force spokesman Lieutenant Colonel David Wakefield said a British solider was killed in an explosion while on vehicle patrol during the operation. It was not clear whether the solider was one of the five.
15,000 TROOPS IN OPERATION
NATO commander General Stanley McChrystal's counter-insurgency strategy emphasizes seizing population centers and avoiding combat in built-up areas whenever possible.
McChrystal has stressed precautions to avoid killing civilians, and the number of civilians killed by NATO troops has declined since he took command in mid-2009.
Heavy casualties may ruin the government's chance of gaining more support from Afghans. NATO forces advised civilians not to leave their homes. Some have already fled Marjah."The international forces must adopt certain procedures and mechanisms during operation in Marjah to protect civilians," Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in a statement.
In Marjah, resident Abdel Aziz, 16, told the Marines through a translator, "All the walls between the streets and houses are surrounded by bombs. Most people have gone to Lashkar Gah. That's where we want to go today."
An elderly neighbor emerged from her house and asked Marines not to fire at it. "This is just my house," she said.HEAVILY BOOBY-TRAPPED
After helicopters began ferrying U.S. Marines into Marjah, British troops flew into the northern part of Nad Ali district, and tanks and combat engineering units followed.
"The first phase of the operation is proceeding very successfully. The Taliban have heavily booby-trapped the area, but there has not been any fierce fighting yet," Helmand Governor Gulab Mangal told a news conference.
"We have seized 11 key locations in the district and the resistance from the insurgents has been subdued."
The 15,000-troop operation was named Mushtarak, or "together," perhaps to highlight that NATO and Afghan forces were determined to work closely to restore stability to Afghanistan.
Whether the apparent early success can translate into a more permanent end to the insurgency may depend on the government's ability to ensure long-term political and economic stability.
"Our aim is not the elimination of the insurgents, the goal is developing the influence of central government, safeguarding the civilians and providing long-term security and stability," Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak told reporters in Kabul.
Marjah has long been a breeding ground for insurgents and lucrative opium poppy cultivation, which Western countries say funds the insurgency.
Even if NATO deals a heavy blow to the Taliban in Helmand, militants on the U.S. hit list operate from other sanctuaries inside Pakistan or close to the border.
U.S.-allied Pakistan is reluctant to pursue them as it sees these groups as assets to counter the influence of rival India in Afghanistan.
Decades ago, the Marjah area was home to an Afghan-U.S. development project. Its canals, which criss-cross lush farmland, were built by the Americans.
(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi in Kabul; Writing by Michael Georgy and Bryson Hull; Editing by Louise Ireland)
After helicopters began ferrying U.S. Marines into Marjah, British troops flew into the northern part of Nad Ali district, and tanks and combat engineering units followed.
"The first phase of the operation is proceeding very successfully. The Taliban have heavily booby-trapped the area, but there has not been any fierce fighting yet," Helmand Governor Gulab Mangal told a news conference.
"We have seized 11 key locations in the district and the resistance from the insurgents has been subdued."
The 15,000-troop operation was named Mushtarak, or "together," perhaps to highlight that NATO and Afghan forces were determined to work closely to restore stability to Afghanistan.
Whether the apparent early success can translate into a more permanent end to the insurgency may depend on the government's ability to ensure long-term political and economic stability.
"Our aim is not the elimination of the insurgents, the goal is developing the influence of central government, safeguarding the civilians and providing long-term security and stability," Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak told reporters in Kabul.
Marjah has long been a breeding ground for insurgents and lucrative opium poppy cultivation, which Western countries say funds the insurgency.Even if NATO deals a heavy blow to the Taliban in Helmand, militants on the U.S. hit list operate from other sanctuaries inside Pakistan or close to the border.
U.S.-allied Pakistan is reluctant to pursue them as it sees these groups as assets to counter the influence of rival India in Afghanistan.
Decades ago, the Marjah area was home to an Afghan-U.S. development project. Its canals, which criss-cross lush farmland, were built by the Americans.
(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi in Kabul; Writing by Michael Georgy and Bryson Hull; Editing by Louise Ireland)
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