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| Afghanistan | |
| US-led troops face resistance in Marjah operation | |
| 2010-02-17 | |
| [Dawn] Thousands of US-led troops fighting to capture a key Taliban bastion in Afghanistan risked becoming bogged down on Tuesday, running into resistance from mortars and scores of buried bombs. "We are advancing slowly because areas have been mined," Afghan army chief of staff Besmillah Khan said on the fourth day of the massive offensive on Marjah, in the opium heartland of the southern province of Helmand. Meanwhile, Nato said three Afghan civilians have been killed during the assault in southern Afghanistan, bringing to at least 12 the number killed during the operation. The men died in separate incidents in Helmand province on Sunday and Monday. Two men were shot Sunday after being mistaken for militants in the crossfire between a joint Afghan-ISAF patrol and insurgents, the military said. One of the men subsequently died of his injuries. "The two men were initially believed to be insurgents. However the initial investigation suggests the men were caught in the crossfire between insurgents and the joint force," ISAF said. Another man was shot dead by ISAF forces on Sunday, after failing to heed warnings to stop when approaching troops, and another man shot dead in a similar incident on Monday, the military said. A massive force of 15,000 Afghan, US and NATO troops are taking part in Operation Mushtarak ("Together" in Dari), seeking to drive out militants. Thousands of people from at least 1,240 families have fled the area around Marjah, a cluster of villages with a population of about 80,000, and are sheltering with friends and relatives, said the provincial government. While death tolls are impossible to confirm independently, officials have said that 30 Taliban, two NATO soldiers and at least 12 Afghan civilians have been killed in the Marjah battle. Limiting civilian casualties is key to winning hearts and minds in the operation against a Taliban force estimated at up to 1,000 fighters. Remote-controlled bombs have hampered the progress of the assault in an area controlled for years by militants and drug lords. "Hundreds of mines have been discovered in different areas," Khan said, referring to improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, which are the principal killer of foreign troops in Afghanistan. "We are definitely finding more than we expected," said Lieutenant Josh Diddams, of Taskforce Leatherneck, adding: "It's a slow process." Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, who commands the Marines in southern Afghanistan, expected the operation to last for 30 days, Diddams said. An Afghan army officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that troops were meeting "more than a little resistance" inside Marjah from Taliban armed with anti-aircraft guns, rocket-propelled grenades and 82mm mortars. The Red Cross said IEDs planted on roads were preventing casualties from getting to hospital in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, 20 kilometres (12 miles) away from Marjah. A NATO air strike elsewhere in Helmand killed a Taliban commander known as Sarraj-Uddin, said to have coordinated foreigners fighting for the militia, and four Arab fighters, the provincial government said. But the Taliban sought to compete with the Western and Afghan militaries who have journalists "embedded" in units, inviting journalists on Tuesday to tour the battle lines to witness the assault "with their own eyes".
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| Posted by:Fred |
| #11 Operation Mushtarak ("Together" in Dari) They speak Pashto in Helmand province. They name is probably deliberately symbolic of Northern dominance. Completely lost on the MSM of course. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2010-02-17 19:18 |
| #10 The problem with getting the civilians out before festivities commence is getting the civilians out. Yeah, exit stage left is a great strategy, but loading up the donkey cart with the mrs. and the kiddies and driving down the road under the watchful eye of the Taliban sounds problematic at best. The Talibunnies *want* civilians around. They make great human shields and every civie casualty is a media event and propaganda victory. ARCLIGHT Drinks! Hey, can we add 'civilian casualties' to the list of trigger words? |
| Posted by: SteveS 2010-02-17 14:05 |
| #9 All the US would have to do to successfully engage the Taliban is: - declare the area a battle zone, and urge all civilians to flee. - set up blocking points on all possible escape routes. - drop additional leaflets telling the civilian population that if they don't leave, they will be killed. - ARCLIGHT the sh$$ out of the area for about a week. - Go in and assess damage, kill any surviving Taliban, bulldoze the area flat, and build a new village on the site of the old one - a village with running water, electricity, and a decent sewage system. - Keep a battalion on hand to prevent the Taliban from returning. The rest of Afghanistan will get the message. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2010-02-17 12:55 |
| #8 Yeah, imagine the coverage if a couple of batteries of FASCAM were let loose onto an urban setting. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2010-02-17 12:11 |
| #7 Trailing wife I'm with you. It's also well known how insurgents seem to transition to civilians. Drives me nuts. |
| Posted by: Jan 2010-02-17 11:53 |
| #6 Three civilians killed? The horror! Guess we shouldn't have wasted all these days subduing the Talibunnies with this ground offensive when we could have done it by air mail. We COULD destroy the village in order to save it. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2010-02-17 07:33 |
| #5 The thing that annoys me the most is the insistence that every civilian death is an avoidable tragedy Actually, civilian casualties are imminently avoidable: All the Taliban has to do is to tell the civilian population that they expect fighting in the area including aerial bombs and that they should flee the area until the fighting ends. Instead, the Taliban knowingly allows fighting in area they know to have civilians and they take zero measures to protect them as real defenders would. |
| Posted by: badanov 2010-02-17 07:17 |
| #4 The thing that annoys me the most is the insistence that every civilian death is an avoidable tragedy, instead of being the understandable result of being in the vicinity of perforce imperfectly aimed flying ordnance. It's very sad when an innocent dies, but wandering through a battlefield is like juggling chainsaws in terms of risk for the untrained. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-02-17 07:05 |
| #3 since peace is the lack of conflict, and the fastest end of conflict is surrender, then it makes sense that all we need to do is surrender and we can have peace. after all, it would take far less than 4 days to properly surrender wouldnt it? |
| Posted by: abu do you love 2010-02-17 05:58 |
| #2 The Taliban have only had months to prepare defenses in that town to include tunnels under it between districts. So far after four whole days, the Marines have still not eradicated all Taliban resistance. It must be a quagmire! FOUR DAYS and still they have not been able to completely eliminate the Taliban. Why they should have been able to wrap that operation up in 14.6 minutes according to noted military expert Zbigniew Brzezinski. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2010-02-17 02:20 |
| #1 All NET reports indic that US-ALLIED forces are making solid, steady headway on all fronts - personally, I'm more concerned about what Country(s) outside of AFGHAN = AFPAK the Talibs will be retreating into. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2010-02-17 00:31 |