US marines shed deeper into Taleban strongholds on Friday after suffering the first fatality of their massive offensive against Afghanistan's hardline Islamist militia. --PHOTO: AFP
GARMSIR (Afghanistan) - US Marines are in a 'hell of a fight' as they storm into Taleban strongholds in a major assault in Afghanistan, their commanding officer said Friday.
Mission is to secure area
The Marines, teamed up with nearly 600 Afghan forces, are spearheading President Obama's new war plan against the Taleban's bloody insurgency with an emphasis on protecting the population ahead of elections on August 20.
They pushed deeper into Taleban strongholds in opium-producing areas along the Helmand River on Friday.
Nearly 4,000 Marines launched the operation on Thursday in parts of the southern province of Helmand, suffering their first fatality in a pivotal test of President Barack Obama's aggressive new strategy against the Taleban.
The 1/5 Infantry Battalion met only light resistance in their push south and had already been able to meet locals at shuras (councils), Brigadier-General Larry Nicholson said, speaking to a convoy with which AFP was travelling.
The Marines were in an area called Toshtay about 25 kilometres south of Garmsir. Commanders said they would persuade locals that the Afghan security forces - backed by Western troops - offered them a better long-term future than the fundamentalist Taleban militia as Afghanistan braces for elections next month.
On Thursday Marines were inserted into Garmsir and Nawa with little resistance, and quickly overran Khanishin further south where the Taleban had set up a proxy government and justice system.
But they also recorded their first death in an air and land assault that is the Marines' biggest operation since in Fallujah in Iraq in November 2004.
Troops had on Thursday destroyed a militant position in Garmsir, the commander said after a nearly two-hour drive through the desert from Camp Dwyer.
'An enemy-controlled baseline just south of Garmsir was crushed yesterday but that doesn't mean all the enemy have gone,' Brigadier-General Nicholson said. 'In the next few days the enemy will observe us to see what we are doing.
Then they will come back with a vengeance,' he said. On the launch of Operation Khanjar before dawn on Thursday, Brigadier-General Nicholson told his group that 4,000 Marines had been inserted in nearly eight hours, about half of them by helicopter. -- AFP
