Marines establish positions in Afghan assault

July 03, 2009 02:41:42 PM

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US Marines established bridgeheads in Taliban strongholds Friday after suffering the first fatality of their massive offensive against Afghanistan's hardline Islamist militia.

Ferried in by relays of helicopters Thursday, Marines were on the ground in Helmand province's districts of Garmsir and Nawa and had also helped Afghan forces take Khanishin, towards the border with Pakistan, officers said.

The nearly 4,000 Marines are spearheading US President Barack Obama's aggressive new war plan for Afghanistan's bloody insurgency with an emphasis on protecting the population ahead of presidential elections on August 20.

Troops quickly overran Khanishin district, where the Taliban had set up a proxy government and justice system, within hours of the launch of the Marines' biggest operation since Fallujah in Iraq in November 2004.

But they also recorded their first death in an air and land assault that is one of the biggest joint campaigns in post-Taliban Afghanistan.

"There has been one casualty from hostile fire," Marines spokesman First Lieutenant Kurt Stahl said late Thursday, without giving details, including the circumstance of the killing.

"The helicopter insert has put all troops on the ground now in Garmsir and Nawa," Stahl said, referring to districts that are key targets of the assault in the desert.

"Half of the objectives have been secured by nightfall, ahead of schedule. Slight resistance has been met," he said.

But the Taliban reportedly dismissed the mobilisation, with the Afghan Islamic Press quoting a spokesman as saying that previous military operations in vast and rugged Helmand had not yielded success for the armed forces.

"We are resisting but would adopt all kinds of war tactics to the situation," spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi was quoted as telling the agency.

Taliban's hardline Haqqani faction meanwhile claimed it was holding a US soldier who had been missing since June 30, before the current offensive was kicked off.

"We are using all of our available resources to find him and provide for his safe return," US military spokeswoman Captain Elizabeth Mathias told AFP, declining to go into further detail.

Called Khanjar, which means "dagger" in Dari and Pashtu but was translated by the Marines as "Strike of the Sword", the new US offensive also involves about 650 Afghan police and soldiers.

"What makes Operation Khanjar different from those that have occurred before is the massive size of the force introduced, the speed at which it will insert," Marine commander Brigadier General Larry Nicholson said Thursday.

The forces pushed south down the Helmand River valley, deep into insurgent-held areas where foreign troops have failed to establish a presence despite ousting the Taliban from power nearly eight years ago.

"Our aim is for us to be meeting local people within hours, and that's what we'll be doing for the next seven or eight months," Nicholson told AFP.

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 militia.

Afghan army corps commander General Shair Mohammad Zazai told AFP the operation would establish security "so that people can go and vote with confidence and without fear".

Authorities have been concerned the Taliban could undermine Afghanistan's second-ever presidential vote with violence and intimidation.

The vote is a key test of international efforts to install democracy in Afghanistan in an attempt to move the destitute nation on from its turbulent, war-filled past.