ON BOARD USS PELELIU - U.S. Marines took over a desert airstrip in southern Afghanistan on Sunday to set up a forward base for the next stage of the war against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organisation.

"We have landed and we now own terrain in south Afghanistan," General James Mattis told reporters on the USS Peleliu amphibious assault ship in the Arabian Sea.

"We are going to support the Afghan people's efforts to free themselves of the terrorists and the people who support the terrorists."

The Marines, weighed down with rifles, gas masks, shoulder fired rockets, mortars, knives and ammunition, lined up on the deck of the Peleliu to board six CH53 Super Stallion helicopters just before dusk on Sunday for a four-hour flight to their target.

"They picked this fight. You're going to finish it," the commanding officer of the battalion landing team, Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Bourne, told his men.

"Sixty years ago the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor. Nine months later Marines landed at Guadalcanal.

"Eleven weeks ago our country was attacked again. This is your Guadalcanal," Bourne told the Marines, their faces daubed with camouflage cream, blood groups stencilled on their sleeves.

The Marines secured the airstrip, a private facility within striking distance of the Taliban's last remaining stronghold, the southern city of Kandahar, without a shot fired.

They were the first major U.S. ground force to move into Afghanistan since the United States began its bombing campaign on October 7 to topple the Taliban for harbouring bin Laden, prime suspect in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

More troops are due to follow them in.

"In short order you'll have 1,000-plus Marines in the backyard of the Taliban," said Colonel Peter Miller, chief of staff for Taskforce 58, which comprises nearly 9,000 Marines and sailors, including two Marine Expeditionary Units of 2,100 Marines each.

The exact location of the airstrip is secret but taskforce chief of staff Colonel Peter Miller said it was owned by a Gulf Arab who used it as a base for hunting trips.

A taskforce press officer said reports that Kandahar airport had been seized were erroneous.

"We are not at Kandahar airport. We are at a desert airstrip in southern Afghanistan," the press officer said.

Marines from Charlie Company in the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit made up the force that raided the airstrip with air support from Cobra attack helicopters, Harriers and AC-130 gunships.

There was little sign of nerves as they lined up to test-fire their weapons off the side of the ship and await orders to board the heavy-lift helicopters, some of them loaded with fast-attack vehicles.

"We're all psyched up about actually going and getting some payback," said Jeff Feucht, 22, from Minnesota, showing off his own knife with a 10-inch serrated blade engraved with dragons.

On the door of one of the helicopters was painted the aircraft's name -- "Creeping Death".

Preparations for the assault began weeks ago and troops started leaving the Peleliu and the other ships of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit on Wednesday.

(In Washington, U.S. officials who asked not to be identified said those forces had first been moved to staging posts in Pakistan.)

"It's probably about as far as if not further than Marines have ever operated from the sea," Bourne told reporters some days before the raid.

Among the first tasks for the Marines who made the non-stop flight from the Peleliu was to check the airstrip for mines and mark it with landing lights to allow a wave of KC-130 Hercules planes to ferry in more troops, vehicles and fire power.

"The idea is to build up combat power on the objective as quickly as we can so by the time the enemy can react it's a done deal," Bourne said.

"We're there, we're strong and there's nothing they can do." Nampa-Reuters