GARMSIR, Afghanistan (AFP) — US Marines are in a "hell of a fight" as they storm into Taliban strongholds during a major assault in Afghanistan, their commanding officer said Friday.
Nearly 4,000 Marines launched the operation Thursday in parts of the southern province of Helmand, suffering their first fatality in a pivotal test of President Barack Obama's aggressive new strategy against the Taliban.
The 1/5 Infantry Battalion met only light resistance in their push south and had already been able to meet locals at shuras (councils), Brigadier General Larry Nicholson said, speaking to a convoy with which AFP was travelling.
But "for 2/8 there is a hell of a fight going on in the southern quarter of the sector," the top Marine said on arrival at Garmsir, a town along the Helmand River that was a key objective for Operation Khanjar.
"2/8 are going to face some challenges," he said. The battalion was in an area called Toshtay about 25 kilometres (16 miles) south of Garmsir.
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 Taliban militia as Afghanistan braces for elections next month.
On Thursday Marines were inserted into Garmsir and Nawa with little resistance, and quickly overran Khanishin further south where the Taliban had set up a proxy government and justice system.
But they also recorded their first death in an air and land assault that is the Marines' biggest operation since in Fallujah in Iraq in November 2004.
Troops had on Thursday destroyed a militant position in Garmsir, Nicholson said.
"An enemy-controlled baseline just south of Garmsir was crushed yesterday but that doesn't mean all the enemy have gone," he said.
"In the next few days the enemy will observe us to see what we are doing. Then they will come back with a vengeance," he said.
Nicholson later told AFP separately: "Garmsir is three-quarters quiet but there is fighting in Toshtay. We intend to clear that up today. This doesn't mean it is over. The enemy may be reassessing the situation."
Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP the group had not started directly fighting against the Marine and a separate British operation under way for two weeks north of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah.
Militants had planted mines on various roads to meet the troops and some vehicles had been blown up, causing several casualties, he said.
The military has said two British soldiers were killed in a bomb blast on Wednesday and a Marine in hostile fire on Thursday.
"We are trying not to engage with them too soon because there are a lot of them and they would use air force in which case there will be civilian casualties," Ahmadi said.
Brigadier General Muhayadin Ghori, the senior Afghan general involved in Operation Khanjar, told AFP that troops had encountered many mines and were working to defuse them with locals showing where they were planted.
"The operation is very successful," he said.
The Marines, teamed up with nearly 600 Afghan forces, are spearheading Obama's new war plan against the Taliban's bloody insurgency with an emphasis on protecting the population ahead of the second-ever presidential election on August 20, a major test of US-led efforts to install democracy.
The Taliban insurgency has seen a record levels of violence this year.
In fresh attacks on Friday, a remote-controlled bomb blew up a vehicle of road construction workers from an Indian firm in the eastern province of Paktya and killed five men, a provincial government spokesman said.
A suicide bomber meanwhile exploded near Italian soldiers in the western province of Herat, causing a vehicle to overturn and wounding two NATO soldiers, the force said.
Another suicide bomber blew up a car outside the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif but caused no casualties, the interior ministry said.
In southwestern Farah province, a policeman and three Taliban were killed in an attack on a police post, police said.
And in the southern province of Zabul, police said Taliban attacked an army post, killing an Afghan soldier and prompting a military counterattack that left around 20 militants dead. This was not confirmed by foreign troops.
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