COALITION FORCES continued to advance into Taliban-held areas in the violent southern Afghan province of Helmand yesterday on the third day of a major offensive aimed at breaking the insurgents’ control over hundreds of thousands of local people.
However, roadside bombs, teams of snipers and pockets of resistance forced some units to stop short of key objectives and the reports of progress were overshadowed by the deaths of 17 civilians in artillery and air strikes.
A Nato spokesman said last night that an airstrike killed five civilians in Kandahar province, in southern Afghanistan. Twelve people, including six children, died in an artillery strike on Sunday. Use of the weapons systems responsible for the error had been suspended, coalition commanders in Afghanistan said.
The biggest Nato offensive since the end of the war in Afghanistan – Operation Moshtarak (“togetherness” in the local language of Dari) – was launched on Saturday with American marines landed from helicopters to attack the small town of Marjah. To the north, 1,200 British troops advanced across the district of Nad Ali. In all, the operation involves about 15,000 American, British and Afghan troops.
Yesterday, fighting was continuing in Marjah, but according to one report the marines had not advanced more than 500m over 24 hours. “We are making steady progress, but being very methodical about detecting and clearing routes in an area heavily saturated with IEDs ,” US marine Capt Abraham Sipe said.
British troops in Nad Ali, however, have encountered little or no resistance as they moved forward, officers said. “It has been incredibly quiet,” said Lieut Col David Wakefield, speaking from the town of Lashkar Gah where the headquarters of the British forces in Helmand is. “We are very happy with the way it is going.”
The offensive is the first real test of US president Barack Obama’s plan to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan to seize insurgent-held areas ahead of a planned 2011 troop draw-down.
Col Wakefield said it was clear that many of the senior Taliban had fled before the deliberately well-publicised advance. “We know full well that many senior Taliban have left the area but the main point is that we are here to stay,” he said.
“The locals were understandably sceptical but they are now realising that we are going to stay and that is the big difference with previous operations.”
British and Afghan troops have taken control of Showal, a village described by coalition officers as “the local seat of Taliban shadow government”. An Afghan soldier yesterday shinned up a crane in the centre of the village and replaced the white flag of the insurgents with the national emblem. Col Wakefield admitted, however, that “having done the clearing, the holding is the biggest challenge”.
The Taliban have a history of ceding ground in the face of overwhelming force. Nato forces are capable of deploying and then counterattacking when focus moves elsewhere through so-called “asymmetric tactics” involving bomb attacks and increasingly sophisticated ambushes.
The governor of Helmand province said three would-be suicide bombers were gunned down on Sunday while trying to blow themselves up among troops.