US surge tightens noose round Taliban stronghold

U.S. marines participating in President Barack Obama's surge in Afghanistan are slowly tightening the noose around an opium-growing region described as the Taliban's last bastion. Some 10,000 Marines are strategically positioned in the southern province of Helmand preparing for an assault on Marjah, likely to be the first major offensive since Obama committed more troops in December, aiming to push back a resurgent Taliban.

"We're very, very close now to Marjah," said Lieutenant Colonel Calvert Worth, commander of the Marines' 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry, which has started approaching the outskirts of the town.

"If the Taliban or the narco-traffickers decide that they do not want to willfully accept a return of a legitimate governance of the region, they would have to make a decision -- they can choose to fight and resist, or they can join the legitimate government of Afghanistan."

The mission aims to re-establish government and a military presence in the area under newly appointed district governor Haji Zair, who has not yet been able to live there, Worth said.

"We are here to facilitate the reintegration of Zair as a representative of the government," Worth said.

The Marines are prepared to take casualties as they take the fight to the Taliban in Marjah alongside Afghan troops integrated into their ranks, said Worth.

He said platoons in areas near Marjah had already engaged the Taliban, resulting in enemy casualties.

For security reasons, no timeframe for the attack was given, although some military officials have said it could be launched by early February, as troops are now beginning to patrol peripheral areas.

US troops will assist Zair during the transition phase, but he will have to come up with his own plan to govern the impoverished region, where subsistence farmers are forced to plant poppy to survive.

Helmand is the world's biggest opium-growing region, in a country where drug money has for years funded the Taliban insurgency.

If the military mission is a success, Zair will have his work cut out.

Marjah was planned and built partly by the US government in the 1950s as a model agricultural area irrigated by a network of canals.

In recent years, however, it has mostly not been under direct government control, but instead a territory of operations for drug traffickers and the Taliban, often in tandem.

A Marine offensive in 2008 flushed out Taliban fighters in nearby areas, and they have since sought refuge in Marjah.

Military officials said the Taliban may also be preparing to dig in for what is likely to be the first major operation of Obama's latest surge.

"The American people understand what we are doing here. The Marines too understand the sacrifices that need to be made," Worth said. "If casualties occur, that is part and parcel of being a participant in a conflict like this."
Copyright 2010 AFP American Edition

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