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US Marines - Source: Reuters -
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Thousands of US Marines stormed deep into Taliban territory in
an Afghan river valley, launching the biggest military offensive of
Barack Obama's presidency.
The Marines say Operation Khanjar, or Strike of the Sword, will be
decisive and is intended to seize virtually the entire lower
Helmand River valley, the heartland of the Taliban insurgency and
the world's biggest opium poppy producing region.
In swiftly seizing the valley and holding ground there, US
commanders hope to accomplish within hours what overstretched NATO
troops had failed to achieve over several years, and help secure
Afghanistan for an August 20 presidential election after years of
stalemate.
"The intent is to go big, go strong and go fast, and by doing so we
are going to save lives on both sides," Brigadier-General Larry
Nicholson, commander of the Marines in southern Afghanistan, told
his staff before the operation.
Violence in the Taliban-led insurgency is at its highest since the
Taliban's ouster in 2001. The operation marks the first big test of
Washington's new regional strategy to defeat the Taliban and its
allies and stabilise Afghanistan.
With new tactics to win over the Afghan population and new
commanders in place, the US military is hoping to turn the tide of
a war some in Washington have admitted they are not winning.
The US military said later on Thursday that a soldier had been
missing in south-eastern Afghanistan since Tuesday, before the
operation in Helmand began, and was thought to have been captured
by militants.
The Pentagon confirmed the incident.
A Taliban commander, Mullah Sangeen, said from an undisclosed
location the soldier was taken as a patrol walked out of its base
in Paktika province and would only be released when the US military
freed Taliban fighters it held.
Thousands of fighters
The Taliban has vowed that its thousands of fighters in southern
Helmand and Kandahar would fight back against the offensive.
Only minor skirmishes were reported on the first day.
"Thousands of Taliban mujahideen are ready to fight against US
troops in the operation in Helmand province," Mullah Hayat Khan, a
senior Afghan Taliban commander, said in Pakistan by telephone from
an undisclosed location.
In Islamabad, the Pakistan military said it was redeploying some of
its border forces to block any Taliban fighters trying to flee the
new offensive. Helmand shares a 200-km desert border with
Pakistan's south-western Baluchistan province.
The offensive came as the commander of foreign forces in
Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, held talks in Rawalpindi
with Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, a Pakistani
military official said.
He did not give any details.
The US military said it had suffered no serious casualties in the
early stages of the assault.
The Taliban said in a later statement one of their fighters had
been killed and two wounded. Quoting spokesman Qari Mohammad
Yousuf, it said 11 foreign troops were killed and wounded.
Britain's Ministry of Defence said in a statement two British
soldiers were killed in an explosion in central Helmand on
Wednesday in a related operation preceding Khanjar.
In south-eastern Zabul province, Afghan police killed nine Taliban
fighters and discovered a tonne of explosives, the Interior
Ministry said in a statement.
Waves of helicopters
Waves of helicopters landed Marines in the early morning darkness
throughout the valley, a crescent of opium poppy and wheat fields
criss-crossed by canals and dotted with mud-brick homes.
Entrenched fighters defied NATO forces there for years.
Marines also dismounted from armoured convoys before dawn and
fanned out into the fields alongside the river as the sun
rose.
About 4,000 Marines surged forward and thousands more were
mobilised to assist them in one of the biggest operations by
foreign troops in Afghanistan since the 1989 Soviet
withdrawal.
The 10,000 Marines in Helmand Province, 8,500 of whom arrived in
the past two months, form the biggest wave of an escalation ordered
by Obama.
The US president has declared the Taliban insurgency in
Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan to be America's main foreign
threat.
Large areas of Helmand have been outside government control. It
produces the biggest share of Afghanistan's opium crop, which
accounts for 90% of the world's heroin.
Launching such a bold operation carries great risk.
A protracted, bloody fight could erode support for the war in
the United States, among its NATO allies and Afghans.
Taliban fighters have had years to reinforce positions among the
valley's irrigation ditches and canals but US and NATO commanders
hope a rapid, decisive victory in Helmand will prove the tipping
point of the war.
"We're going to seize the population from the Taliban and never let
them go," Marine Lieutenant-Colonel Christian Cabaniss told his
troops before they set out in armoured convoys.
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