U.S. Attack on Afghan Town Marjah Launched

[Rocky C]

By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU and CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press Writers Alfred De Montesquiou And Christopher Torchia, Associated Press Writers – 1 hr 21 mins ago

NEAR MARJAH, Afghanistan – Helicopter-borne U.S. Marines and Afghan troops swooped down on the Taliban-held town of Marjah before dawn on Saturday, launching a long-expected attack to re-establish government control and undermine support for the militants in their southern heartland.

The attack on Marjah climaxed the biggest joint Afghan-international offensive of the war and is the largest combat operation since President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 U.S. reinforcements here last December to turn the tide of the war.

Marine commanders say they expect between 400 to 1,000 insurgents to be holed up inside this southern Afghan town of 80,000 people in Helmand province, including more than 100 foreign fighters. Marjah is the biggest southern town under Taliban control and the linchpin of the militants' logistical and opium-smuggling network.

"The first wave of choppers has landed inside Marjah. The operation has begun," said Capt. Joshua Winfrey, commander of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, which was at the forefront of the attack.

Several hundred U.S. Marines and some Afghan troops were in the first wave of troops, flying over minefields the militants are believed to have planted around the town, 360 miles (610 kilometers) southwest of Kabul.
The operation, codenamed "Moshtarak," or Together, was described as the biggest joint offensive of the Afghan war. Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, the commander of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, says 15,000 troops were involved, including some 7,500 troops fighting in Marjah and British forces to the north in the district of Nad Ali.

The helicopter assault was preceded by illumination flares which were fired over the town about 2 a.m. In the pitch darkness of a moonless night, the roar of helicopters could be heard overhead, flying in assault troops from multiple locations.

The white flash of Hellfire and Tow missiles could be seen exploding over the town as flares illuminated the darkness to help assault troops spot targets in the town.

Once the town is secured, NATO hopes to rush in aid and restore public services in a bid to win support among the estimated 125,000 people who live in Marjah and surrounding villages. The Afghans' ability to restore those services is crucial to the success of the operation and to preventing the Taliban from returning.

Tribal elders have pleaded for NATO to finish the operation quickly and spare civilians — an appeal that offers some hope the townspeople will cooperate with Afghan and international forces once the Taliban are gone.
At the Pentagon, a senior U.S. official said Afghan president Hamid Karzai had signed off on the attack.

Another defense official said Karzai had been informed of planning for the operation well in advance. The official said it marked a first in terms of both sharing information prior to the attack and planning collaboration with the Afghan government.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because there were not authorized to speak publicly.
The second official said the number of Afghan security forces in the district have roughly doubled since Obama's first infusion of some 10,000 Marines in southern Afghanistan last year.

The Marjah offensive involves close combat in extremely difficult terrain, that official said. A close grid of wide canals dug by the United States as an aid project decades ago make the territory a particularly rich agricultural prize, but complicate the advance of U.S. forces.

On the eve of the attack, cars and trucks jammed the main road out of Marjah on Friday as hundreds of civilians defied militant orders and fled the area ahead of the assault. For weeks, U.S. commanders had signaled their intention to attack Marjah in hopes that civilians would seek shelter.
Residents told The Associated Press by telephone this week that Taliban fighters were preventing them from leaving, warning the roads were planted with land mines to slow the NATO advance.


Still, many people fled anyway for the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, 20 miles (30 kilometers) to the northeast. They told journalists they had to leave quickly and secretly to avoid recrimination from Taliban commanders.
Some said they slipped out of town when Taliban commanders weren't watching.

"We were not allowed to come here. We haven't brought any of our belongings; we just tried to get ourselves out," said Bibi Gul, an elderly woman in a black headscarf who arrived in nearby Lashkar Gah with three of her sons. She left three more sons behind in Marjah.

Police searched vehicles for any signs of militants, in one case prodding bales of cotton with a metal rod in search of hidden weapons.
"They don't allow families to leave," Marjah resident Qari Mohammad Nabi said of the Taliban. "The families can only leave the village when they are not seen leaving."

Provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi said about 450 families — an estimated 2,700 people — had already sought refuge in Lashkar Gah. Most moved in with relatives but more than 100 were being sheltered by the government, he said.

Ahmadi said the local government was prepared to shelter 7,000 families in nearby towns, providing them with food, blankets and dishes.
In advance of the attack, Afghan officials urged community leaders in Marjah to use their influence to persuade the Taliban to lay down their weapons and avoid a bloodbath. In return, the officials promised to improve the lives of the people there.

During a meeting Thursday, Helmand's governor, Gulab Mangal, urged tribal elders from the town to "use any avenue you have, direct or indirect, to tell the Taliban who don't want to fight, that they can join with us," according to the chief of Helmand's provincial council, Mohammad Anwar Khan.

For their part, the elders begged for limited use of airstrikes because of the risk of civilian deaths, Khan said Friday.
Another of the elders at the meeting, Mohammad Karim Khan, said he would not dare to approach the Taliban and tell them to give up their guns to the government.

"We can't talk to the Taliban. We are farmers and poor people and we are not involved in these things like the politicians are," said Khan, who is not related to the provincial council chief.

Instead, a group of 34 elders sent a letter Friday to the provincial government urging NATO forces to finish the operation in Marjah quickly and to avoid harming civilians. Abdul Hai Agha, an elder from Marjah, said local people were frightened and feared they would not be cared for after the Taliban are gone.

"We said in this letter that if you are doing this operation in Marjah, do it quickly," Agha told the AP by phone from the town.
The fact that the elders did not demand U.S. and Afghan troops call off the operation offered a glimmer of hope the townspeople will cooperate with the pro-government forces — if the Afghan leadership is able to fulfill its promises of a better life without the Taliban.

U.S. officials have long complained that Afghan government corruption and inefficiency have alienated millions of Afghans and paved the way for the revival of the militant group after it was driven from power in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

One of the main drafters of the letter to government officials said he and others had been reaching out to local Taliban commanders.
"We have talked to some of the Taliban over the phone and we have told them: 'This is your country. Don't create problems for your fellow Afghans and don't go on a suicide mission,'" said Abdul Rehman Jan, an elder who lives in Lashkar Gah.
However, Jan said most of the Afghan Taliban have already fled the area. Militant commanders from the Middle East or Pakistan have stayed on "and they want to fight," he said.

[FistFu68]

Git Some Kill all those Mutha Fucers Shut down And Totally Destroy the Poppy Trade that Funds the Taliban

[foreverproud]

God bless and stand by each and every Marine taking part in the attack on Marjah.

[LetUsNvr4Get]

get Some Marines !!! Get Some !!!

[slug]

And I'm stuck here stateside once again, I had better get mine when I'm in country.

[LetUsNvr4Get]

yea no joke slug, im stuck on this freakin ship, id give anything to be in country with my prior unit right now !

[Gunner 0313]

YUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT !!!!!

[Rocky C]

Git Some Kill all those Mutha Fucers Shut down And Totally Destroy the Poppy Trade that Funds the Taliban

[Rocky C]

updated 1 hour, 8 minutes ago


MARJAH, Afghanistan - Thousands of U.S. Marines and Afghan soldiers stormed the Taliban stronghold of Marjah by air and ground Saturday, meeting only scattered resistance but facing a daunting thicket of bombs and booby traps that slowed the allied advance through the town.

The massive offensive was aimed at establishing Afghan government authority over the biggest southern town under militant control and breaking the Taliban grip over a wide area of their southern heartland.

Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, NATO commander of forces in southern Afghanistan, said Afghan and coalition troops, aided by 60 helicopters, made a "successful insertion" into Marjah in southern Helmand province.

[Rocky C]

In Marjah, Marines and Afghan troops faced little armed resistance. But their advance through the town was impeded by countless land mines, homemade bombs and booby-traps littering the area.

Throughout the day, Marine ordnance teams blew up bombs where they were found, setting off huge explosions that reverberated through the dusty streets.
The bridge over the canal into Marjah from the north was rigged with so many explosives that Marines erected temporary bridges to cross into the town.

"It's just got to be a very slow and deliberate process," said Capt. Joshua Winfrey of Stillwater, Okla., a Marine company commander.

Lt. Col. Brian Christmas, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, said U.S. troops fought gunbattles in at least four areas of the town, including the western suburb of Sistani where India Company faced "some intense fighting."

To the east, the battalion's Kilo Company was inserted into the town by helicopter without meeting resistance but was then "significantly engaged" as the Marines fanned out from the landing zone, Christmas said.

Marine commanders had said they expected between 400 and 1,000 insurgents — including more than 100 foreign fighters — to be holed up in Marjah, a town of 80,000 people which is the linchpin of the militants' logistical and opium-smuggling network in the south.

Operation Moshtarak

Shopkeeper Abdul Kader, 44, said seven or eight Taliban fighters, who had been holding the position where the Marines crossed over, had fled in the middle of the night. He said he was angry at the insurgents for having planted bombs and mines all around his neighborhood.

"They left with their motorcycles and their guns. They went deeper into town," he said as Marines and Afghan troops searched a poppy field next to his house. "We can't even walk out of our own houses."

Saturday's ground assault followed several hours after the first wave of helicopters flew troops over the mine fields into the center of town before dawn. Helicopter gunships fired missiles at Taliban tunnels and bunkers while flares illuminated the night sky so pilots could see their landing zones.

The offensive, code-named "Moshtarak," or "Together," was described as the biggest joint operation of the Afghan war, with 15,000 troops involved, including some 7,500 in Marjah itself. The government says Afghan soldiers make up at least half of the offensive's force.

[Lupo22]

Can someone tell me why we announce these attacks to the Taliban? Giving them time to flee and seek refuge and leave behind a never ending thread of booby traps and IEDs?

Why don't we announce an attack and then just post VCPs and ECPs and grab them all when they try to flee??

[Rocky C]

By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer Alfred De Montesquiou, Associated Press Writer – 5 mins ago

MARJAH, Afghanistan – Taliban fighters stepped up counterattacks Monday against Marines and Afghan soldiers in the militant stronghold of Marjah, slowing the allied advance to a crawl despite Afghan government claims that the insurgents are broken and on the run.

Taliban fighters appeared to be slipping under cover of darkness into compounds already deemed free of weapons and explosives, then opening fire on the Marines from behind U.S. lines.

Also Monday, NATO said five civilians were accidentally killed and two wounded by an airstrike when they were mistakenly believed to have been planting roadside bombs in Kandahar province, east of the Marjah offensive.

The airstrike happened one day after 12 people, half of them children, were killed by two U.S. missiles that struck a house on the outskirts of Marjah. Afghan officials said Monday that three Taliban fighters were in the house at the time of the attack.

On the third day of the main attack on Marjah, Afghan commanders spoke optimistically about progress in the town of about 80,000 people, the linchpin of the Taliban logistical and opium poppy smuggling network in the militant-influenced south.
Brig. Gen. Sher Mohammad Zazai, commander of Afghan troops in the south, told reporters in nearby Lashkar Gah that there had been "low resistance" in the town, adding "soon we will have Marjah cleared of enemies."

Interior Minister Hanif Atmar said many insurgent fighters had already fled Marjah, possibly heading for Pakistan.
In Marjah, however, there was little sign the Taliban were broken. Instead, small, mobile teams of insurgents repeatedly attacked U.S. and Afghan troops with rocket, rifle and rocket-propelled grenade fire. Insurgents moved close enough to the main road to fire repeatedly at columns of mine-clearing vehicles.

At midday at least six large gunbattles were raging across the town, and helicopter gunships couldn't cover all the different fighting locations.
Allied officials have reported only two coalition deaths so far — one American and one Briton killed Saturday. There have been no reports of wounded. Afghan officials said at least 27 insurgents have been killed so far in the offensive.

Nonetheless, the harassment tactics and the huge number of roadside bombs, mines and booby traps planted throughout Marjah have succeeded in slowing the movement of allied forces through the town. After daylong skirmishes, some Marine units had barely advanced at all by sundown.

As long as the town remains unstable, NATO officials cannot move to the second phase — restoring Afghan government control and rushing in aid and public services to win over inhabitants who have been living under Taliban rule for years.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai approved the assault on Marjah only after instructing NATO and Afghan commanders to be careful about harming civilians. "This operation has been done with that in mind," the top NATO commander, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, said Monday.

Despite those instructions, NATO said two U.S. rockets veered off target by up to 600 yards and slammed into a home Sunday outside Marjah, killing 12 people. Six children were among the dead, a NATO military official confirmed Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been formally released.
In London, Britain's top military officer, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, called the missile strike a "very serious setback" to efforts to win the support of local communities, who are from the same Pashtun ethnic group as the Taliban.

"This operation ... is not about battling the Taliban. It is about protecting the local population, and you don't protect them when you kill them," he said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp.

NATO said the Kandahar airstrike was ordered Monday after a joint NATO-Afghan patrol saw people digging along a path "and believed that the individuals" were planting a roadside bomb. When they realized their mistake, troops flew the wounded to a NATO hospital, the statement said.


"We regret this tragic accident and offer our sympathies to the families of those killed and injured," said Maj. Gen. Michael Regner, the NATO command's deputy chief of staff for joint operations. "Our combined forces take every precaution to minimize civilian casualties, and we will investigate this incident to determine how this happened."

About 15,000 U.S., Afghan and British troops are taking part in the massive offensive around Marjah area — the largest southern town under Taliban control. The offensive is the biggest joint operation since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

The main attack began before dawn Saturday when dozens of helicopters dropped hundreds of Marines and Afghan soldiers into the heart of the city. Ground troops began moving just before sunrise, using makeshift bridges to cross the irrigation canals ringing the town because the main bridge was so heavily mined.

Although there was only scattered resistance on the first day, Taliban fighters seem to have regrouped, using hit-and-run tactics to try to prevent the Americans and their Afghan allies from gaining full control of the area.

The Taliban snipers appeared highly skilled at concealing themselves.
"I haven't seen anything, not one person, not a muzzle flash," said Richard Knie, of Hudson, Iowa, a former Marine and retired police officer embedded with the Marines as a law enforcement professional. "And I've been looking a lot."

Troops complained that strict rules to protect civilians made it difficult to use enough firepower to stop the attacks.
"I understand the reason behind it, but it's so hard to fight a war like this," said Lance Corp. Travis Anderson, 20, from Altoona, Iowa. "They're using our rules of engagement against us," he said, adding that his platoon had repeatedly seen men dropping their guns into ditches before walking away to melt among civilians.

[Kp42]

I understand why we have to fight like this, but we are putting Marines lives in danger by not using the assets we have. It's like tying their hands behind their backs. Semper Fi Marines.

[SaloSV]

By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer Alfred De Montesquiou, Associated Press Writer – 5 mins ago

MARJAH, Afghanistan –

Troops complained that strict rules to protect civilians made it difficult to use enough firepower to stop the attacks.
"I understand the reason behind it, but it's so hard to fight a war like this," said Lance Corp. Travis Anderson, 20, from Altoona, Iowa. "They're using our rules of engagement against us," he said, adding that his platoon had repeatedly seen men dropping their guns into ditches before walking away to melt among civilians.

This is the part I would have trouble with. Split second decision making with your trigger finger ready. I hope they have incorped this into recruit training because when I went through, they didn't really give **** about it. Including SOI.

[Rocky C]

I understand why we have to fight like this, but we are putting Marines lives in danger by not using the assets we have. It's like tying their hands behind their backs. Semper Fi Marines.

Sad but True.

Semper Fi,
Rocky