PrairiePundit

Image via Wikipedia BBC: Ten months ago, foreign forces in south-west Afghanistan launched a major operation to clear Taliban insurgents from the district of Marjah , in Helmand province . As the BBC's Michael Buchanan found on a visit to Marjah, recent months have seen signs of progress for local people. It was an unusual school opening. Wandering among the smiling student faces were about two dozen heavily armed US marines as well as armed guards provided by the local community. They had all gathered to formally open the Balakino School in Marjah - a district on the edge of Afghanistan's insurgency. The marines funded the entire construction and resourcing of the school - the desks, chairs, and books, paid the teachers. But on the makeshift platform where the speakers gathered for the opening, there were no Americans. The strategy was clear - get the Afghans to receive the credit for providing for their own community. Once the formalities were over, the children ...

Daily Mail on Sunday: Technology that can locate snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan is to be used in the fight against gun crime in Britain, it was reported today. The ShotSpotter, which uses audio sensors to pinpoint a gunman's location to within ten metres, can 'hear' shots from two miles away. It is used by the military to find snipers in Afghanistan and Iraq and is now going to be deployed in Birmingham, The Times reported today. ... There is much more. It is not clear to me why the Marines in Marjah did not have access to this technology. I am pretty sure the US Army used it in Iraq as well as the Brits. It would seem to be important equipment for the coming surge in Kandahar.

Independent: One of the chief proponents of the US military's "surge" policy in Afghanistan has declared that "unrealistic expectations" were raised over the gains made by Nato's offensive to capture the Taliban stronghold of Marjah. General Jack Keane, a former vice -chief of the US Army, also warned that politicians talking about the early pullout of troops from the conflict send the wrong signals to both allies and enemies about the West's commitment. Before a visit to Helmand last weekend, the Defence Secretary Liam Fox said there should be a quick withdrawal of British troops from a country which he described as a "broken 13th-century state". President Barack Obama has set July 2011 as when US forces would begin a drawdown. General Keane's warning comes after General Stanley McChrystal described Marjah as a "bleeding ulcer". The US commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan has told US and Afghan troops and off...

NY Times: Farmers from the district of Marja, which since February has been the focus of the largest American-led military operation in Afghanistan, are fleeing the area, saying that the Taliban are terrorizing the population and that American troops cannot protect the civilians. The departure of the farmers is one of the most telling indications that Taliban fighters have found a way to resume their insurgency, three months after thousands of troops invaded this Taliban stronghold in the opening foray of a campaign to take control of southern Afghanistan. Militants have been infiltrating back into the area and the prospect of months of more fighting is undermining public morale, residents and officials said. As the coalition prepares for the next major offensive in the southern city of Kandahar, the uneasy standoff in Marja, where neither the American Marines nor the Taliban have gained the upper hand and clashes occur daily, provides a stark lesson in the challen...

The report is by C.J. Chivers of the New York Times who is an excellent combat reporter. It is from the fighting several weeks ago, but gives a good picture of the shape of the battle.

NY Times: Small bands of elite American Special Operations forces have been operating with increased intensity for several weeks in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan’s largest city, picking up or picking off insurgent leaders to weaken the Taliban in advance of major operations, senior administration and military officials say. The looming battle for the spiritual home of the Taliban is shaping up as the pivotal test of President Obama ’s Afghanistan strategy, including how much the United States can count on the country’s leaders and military for support, and whether a possible increase in civilian casualties from heavy fighting will compromise a strategy that depends on winning over the Afghan people. It will follow a first offensive, into the hamlet of Marja, that is showing mixed results . And it will require the United States and its Afghan partners to navigate a battleground that is not only much bigger than Marja but also militarily, politically and culturally m...

Washington Post: Marines are mounting an intensive effort to disrupt the opium harvest in the former Taliban enclave of Marja by confiscating tools from migrant workers, compensating poppy farmers who plow under their fields and collaborating with Drug Enforcement Administration personnel to raid collection sites. The steps amount to one of the most novel U.S. attempts to crack down on a key part of Afghanistan's drug trade while seeking to minimize the impact on individual farmers, many of them poor sharecroppers who face economic peril if they cannot harvest or sell their crops. The plan to pay farmers, who will receive $120 for each acre of tilled fields, prompted a tense debate among Marine officials and civilian reconstruction personnel, some of whom argued that it provides preferential treatment to those in Marja who planted an illegal crop. But the Marines' program eventually won the approval of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. In a March 30 ...

McClatchy: Among the U.S. Marines at Combat Outpost Turbett, Gunnery Sgt. Brandon Dickinson is better known as "Gunny D." These days, the 32-year-old non-commissioned officer , who's spearheading U.S. Marine counterinsurgency outreach in this central slice of Marjah, has a new nickname: "The mayor of Koru Chareh." In the weeks since the Marines with Bravo Company , 1st Battalion , 6th Marine Regiment seized control of this opium-rich region from the Taliban , Dickinson has emerged as a neighborhood godfather in the ragtag Koru market outside this Marine outpost. Every day, Dickinson hands out money to pay storekeepers recovering from the fighting, hires scores of workers to clean canals, and wanders into the street without his flak jacket to talk to Marjah elders. The new "mayor" only has to walk a few feet to encounter the opposition, however. The Mari...

Sunday Telegraph: It became known as “the battle of Crossing Point One”. In a series of suicidal attacks late last year, hard-core Taliban fighters tried to over-run an isolated British base on the northern tip of Nad e’Ali. Had the insurgents succeeded, the victory would have been a propaganda coup par excellence, and the British mission in central Helmand could have been seriously jeopardised. For two gruelling weeks in the area of Luy Mandah, 30 soldiers fought a 360-degree battle with the Taliban in the most arduous conditions. The combat was often at close quarters where bayonets were fixed and hand grenades became the weapons of choice for the beleaguered British troops. By the battle’s end, every man in the platoon was credited with at least one Taliban kill. The battle proper began on the night of November 4 last year, just a few hours after five members of the battlegroup in another part of the district were shot dead by a rogu...

NY Times: ... Though Marja has an occupation force numbering more than one coalition soldier or police officer for every eight residents, Taliban agitators have been able to wage an underground campaign of subversion, which residents say has intensified in the past two weeks. The new governor of Marja, Haji Abdul Zahir, said the militants were now holding meetings in randomly selected homes roughly every other night, gathering residents together and demanding that they turn over the names of anyone cooperating with the authorities. Mr. Zahir said the Taliban also regularly issued “night letters,” posted at mosques or on utility poles, warning against such collaboration, and often intimidated residents into providing them with shelter and food, even in densely populated neighborhoods of the city, which has a population of 80,000. ... It sounds to me like the Afghan troops and police in the city are not doing their job. They need to have check points that would sto...

McClatchy: Two weeks after the U.S.-led forces swiftly seized control of this long-standing insurgent stronghold, Taliban forces are posing a new threat by menacing, beating and even beheading local residents who cooperate with the emerging Afghan government, according to Afghan and American officials. Unable to confront the U.S. military directly with any serious challenge, Taliban fighters are shifting tactics as they try to undermine the American-backed Afghan government before it can win the trust of these southern Afghanistan residents, who've lived under insurgent rule for years. While the incidents so far appear to be isolated, American military leaders warned Sunday that they must contain the threat before it gains any momentum. "We are in a very critical situation right now," said Matt, a U.S. military adviser to the Afghan security forces in Marjah who asked that his last name not be used to pr...

LA Times: The Afghan troops who supported the U.S. Marines in the battle to end Taliban control of this town in Helmand province showed marked improvement over last summer's performance in a similar fight but still need much more training, Marine commanders say. Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, the top Marine here, said that overall the Afghan battalions exceeded his expectations. Nicholson said he would give some Afghan units an A- or B+ but that others, particularly those with soldiers fresh from basic training, would get a C- or D. The lead Afghan commander, Brig. Gen. Mahayoodin Ghoori, agreed with Nicholson's assessment. "We fought hard, we beat the terrorists, but we need more training, especially more training with heavy weapons," Ghoori said. ... The Marines are moving to boost Afghan training, by emphasizing combat leadership among the enlisted ranks, and more accurate use of M-16s. The project goes by the acronym TLSR: Transition of Leading Security Responsibilit...

CNN: Authorities raised the Afghan flag over the battle-scarred enclave of Marjah on Thursday, a ceremony symbolizing the presence of the Afghan government in the Taliban stronghold. The red, black and green banner was hoisted over an area where U.S. and other troops have been fighting the Taliban in Operation Moshtarak -- the biggest offensive of the war. A few hundred people watched the event, attended by Helmand Gov. Gulab Mangal, other provincial and local officials, and military officials. "I think we're feeling pretty good about the control of the populated areas, the infrastructure," said Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commander of U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan . ... There appears to have been no final battle as such in Marjah. We went from pockets of resistance to a flag raising in a matter of days.This all happened within a week of commanders saying it might take another 30 days to clear the Taliban. I suspect they got hungry and ran out of ammo. The loc...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy It has to be a job that takes great courage.

Times: Afghan civilians will today begin to pour into the district cleared by British troops in a pivotal phase of the operation to banish the Taleban. Teachers and civil servants, together with foreign engineers, will begin to try to cement the military gains of Operation Moshtarak by winning the trust of locals. Over the coming weeks, thousands of farmers will be given alfalfa seed, maize and summer vegetables to help them to move away from poppy growing. Local government will set up bases in villages that have not seen an official for decades. The moves will be signalled today by Gulab Mangal, the Governor of Helmand province, as he announces the end of the military offensive in Nad Ali district and the beginning of the civilian phase to follow it. ... British and Afghan troops met little opposition as they advanced through Nad Ali province. US Marines and Afghan forces have faced tougher resistance from insurgents in and around the town of Marjah to the southwest. US commanders...

Independent: As desperate residents of Marjah warned that food and water were running out yesterday, the Operation Moshtarak endgame got under way with Nato and Afghan government forces attempting to force their way into one of the last remaining Taliban enclaves. The need for supplies in the former Taliban stronghold is becoming increasingly urgent for those who did not leave town when the fighting began. But for now, the US-led troops are focused on what they hope will be a final battle with the insurgents in the town, who repeatedly attempted to block their path yesterday. The coalition faced ambushes among the narrow alleyways and roadside bombs on the edges of a two-square-mile stretch on the western edge of the combat zone. Warplanes, helicopter-gunships and unmanned drones circled above, but were being used only sparingly because, US commanders claimed, the militants were using civilians as shields. Lt-Col Brian Christmas, commander of 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, sa...

NY Times: Gen. David H. Petraeus , the head of the United States Central Command, said Sunday that the battle being fought in the Taliban stronghold of Marja was the “initial salvo” in a military campaign that could last 12 to 18 months. ... He said that international forces had spent recent months mapping strategy, gathering resources and preparing the leadership of a “comprehensive civil-military campaign.” Saying that 5,400 of the 30,000 additional troops President Obama has promised to deploy were already on the ground, General Petraeus added that Special Forces were playing a major role. “We have more of our Special Operations forces going in on the ground, and you’ve seen the results,” he said, “with more Afghan shadow governors, the Taliban shadow governors being captured, more of the high-value targets being taken down.” General Petraeus said that American troops had encountered tough fighting from a force he called both “formidable” and “a bit disjointed at this point.” .....

This CBS video gives a good idea of what the supply runs to the troops at the front have to deal with on the way to Marjah. While the enemy was able to disable one of the MRAPs and it did attempt to fire on the Marines as they came out of the vehicle, their ambush was ineffective.

AFP: Afghan police on Sunday prepared to take control of a town at the centre of a US-led offensive against the Taliban, as trapped residents said they were running out of food. About 15,000 Afghan and NATO troops faced tough fighting as Operation Mushtarak entered a second week, with gunfights and mines bogging down attempts to secure the Nad Ali and Marjah areas of the southern province of Helmand. Civilians locked down by bombs sewn across the conflict zone were facing increasingly desperate conditions, but officials were hopeful that an elite Afghan police force would soon be able to control parts of Marjah township. General Muhaidin Ghori, the Afghan National Army commander for Helmand province, said that about 600 police with the newly established Public Protection Police Force had expanded their positions day-by-day since Friday. "They are in Marjah centre, in the bazaar," he told AFP. "We are busy carrying out the clean-up and search operations to provide the gro...

NY Times: When American and allied forces pushed into the Taliban stronghold of Marja, in southern Afghanistan , last week, they had the advantage of knowing where dozens of roadside bombs had already been planted. And when some troops came under fire, they called in help from a weapon that has quietly become one of the military’s most versatile tools on the Afghan battlefield: the drone . The use of the drones has expanded quickly and virtually unnoticed in Afghanistan. The Air Force now flies at least 20 Predator drones — twice as many as a year ago — over vast stretches of hostile Afghan territory each day. They are mostly used for surveillance, but have also carried out more than 200 missile and bomb strikes over the last year, including 14 strikes near Marja in the last few days, newly released military records show. That is three times as many strikes in the past year as in Pakistan, where the drones have gotten far more attention and proved more controversial for their use in ...