US Marines seize Taliban headquarters in Marjah

The Daily Times, Pakistan, February 2010

MARJAH:

After a fierce gunbattle, US Marines seized a strongly defended compound on Friday that appears to have been Taliban headquarters – complete with photos of fighters posing with their weapons, dozens of Taliban-issued ID cards and graduation diplomas allegedly from a training camp in Pakistan.

The Taliban, who had been using the field office just south of Marjah’s town centre, abandoned it by the end of the day’s fighting, as Marines converged on them from all sides, escalating operations to break resistance in this Taliban stronghold in southern Helmand province.

Marines from Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines fought their way south from the town centre on Friday after residents told them that several dozen insurgent fighters had regrouped in the area.

Throughout the day, small groups of Taliban marksmen tried to slow the advance with rifle fire as they slowly fell back in face of the Marines assault.

“They know that they are outnumbered ... and that in the end they don’t have the firepower to compete with us conventionally,” said Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines Commander Captain Joshua Winfrey of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Lima Company’s advance was part of a move by several Marine companies to converge on a pocket of Taliban fighters from all four directions. The Marines believe they’ve cornered what appeared to be a significant Taliban fighting force.

“It seems that it’s their last stand,” Winfrey said.

NATO said two of its personnel died on Friday in a small-arms attack but did not identify the victim by nationality.

Six coalition troops were killed on Thursday, NATO said, making it the deadliest day since the offensive began on February 13.

Britain’s Defence Ministry said three British soldiers were among those killed on Thursday.

On Friday about two-dozen elite Marines were dropped by helicopter into an area where skilled Taliban marksmen are known to operate, an officer said.

A NATO statement said troops were still meeting “some resistance” from Taliban fighters and homemade bombs remain the key threat. At a briefing in London, Major General Gordon Messenger said the militant holdouts don’t threaten the overall offensive but will take time to clear out. agencies

Karzai: NATO still causes too many civilian deaths

AP, Saturday, February 2010 

By Alfred De Montesqiou And Heidi Vogt, Associated Press Writers

MARJAH, Afghanistan –

U.S. Marines and Afghan squads engaged in sustained gunfights with Taliban fighers shooting from residential compounds where families huddled Saturday, as (the NATO-backed) President Hamid Karzai called on coalition troops to do more to prevent civilian deaths during their offensive on a key Taliban stronghold.

During a speech at the opening session of the Afghan parliament in Kabul, Karzai said NATO's efforts to prevent civilian deaths during its operations were insufficient because innocent people keep dying.

He also repeated his call to Taliban fighters to renounce al-Qaida and join with the government — an appeal that may resonate more after recent arrests of Taliban leaders in Pakistan.

Karzai held up a picture of an 8-year-old girl who he said was the only one left to recover the bodies of her 12 relatives, all killed when two NATO rockets struck their home during the offensive in the southern town of Marjah. He called the incident a tragedy for all Afghanistan.

But he also acknowledged that NATO has made progress in reducing civilian casualties and airstrikes — which have been responsible for some of the largest incidents of civilian deaths. And he thanked NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who attended the speech, for "standing with us honestly in this effort."

However, Karzai stressed that the effort is not sufficient.

"We need to reach the point where there are no civilian casualties," Karzai said. "Our effort and our criticism will continue until we reach that goal."

NATO forces have repeatedly said they want to prevent civilian casualties, but acknowledged that it is not always possible.

NATO and Afghan troops "remain committed to reducing the possibilities of civilian and combined force casualties," the coalition said in a statement Saturday.

Karzai's comments came as NATO reported that its troops killed another civilian in Marjah, bringing the civilian death toll from the operation to at least 16.

NATO troops fired on the man after he dropped a box that they believed held a bomb and started running toward them, NATO said. Afterward, they found the box contained materials that could have been used to make a bomb, but no explosive.

Despite the presence of the suspicious materials, NATO categorized the dead man as a civilian.

The week-old operation in Marjah is a major test of a new NATO strategy that stresses protecting civilians over routing insurgents as quickly as possible.

But in Marjah, the painstaking process of separating out innocent people from Taliban fighters has also slowed troops' progress in gaining control of the town.

"Fighting remains difficult in the northeast and west of Marjah, but Taliban fighters' activity is not limited to those areas," NATO said in a statement.

On Saturday, Marines and Afghan soldiers faced hours of sporadic but intense gunfights from Taliban snipers often shooting from compounds where families could be seen huddling. Troops kneeling for cover in muddy ditches were returning fire with machine guns and grenades.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, the Interior Ministry said six people had been killed by roadside bombs in two separate incidents in southern Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

Taliban fighers also attacked police clearing a poppy field in Helmand's Nari Saraj district, killing six officers, provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi said.

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Vogt reported from Kabul. Associated Press writers Amir Shah in Kabul, Noor Khan in Kandahar and Geoff Mulvihill in Princeton, N.J., also contributed to this report.