| Submit your comments on this article |
| Afghanistan |
| Afghan army raises flag on embattled Taleban town |
| 2010-02-18 |
| MARJAH, Afghanistan — Military commanders raised the Afghan flag in the bullet-ridden main market of the Taleban's southern stronghold of Marjah on Wednesday as firefights continued to break out elsewhere in the town between holed-up militants and US and Afghan troops. With the assault in its fifth day, an Afghan army soldier climbed to the roof of an abandoned shop and raised a large bamboo pole with Afghanistan's official green-and-red flag. A crowd including the provincial governor, a few hundred Marine and Afghan troops and handfuls of civilians — Afghan men in turbans and traditional loose tunics who were searched for weapons as they entered the bazaar — watched from below. The market was calm during the ceremony and Marines there said they are in control of the neighborhood. But the detritus of fighting was everywhere. The back of the building over which the flag waved had been blown away. Shops were riddled with bullet holes. Grocery stores and fruit stalls had been left standing open, hastily deserted by their owners. White metal fences marked off areas that had not yet been cleared of bombs. Afghan soldiers said they were guarding the shops to prevent looting and hoped the proprietors would soon feel safe enough to return. The Marines and Afghan troops ‘saw sustained but less frequent insurgent activity' in Marjah on Wednesday, limited mostly to small-scale attacks, NATO said in a statement. NATO forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay told journalists in Brussels that by Wednesday most of the objectives the attack force had set itself had been achieved. He declined to specify what percentage of Marjah had been occupied, but said the allied forces were now intent on clearing the last pocket of resistance in the western part of the town. ‘Perhaps the pocket in the western side of Marjah still gives freedom of movement to the Taleban, but that is the extent of their movement,' Tremblay said. |
| Posted by:Steve White |