Gunfire as some Taliban fight Marines in Marjah

MARJAH – It could take weeks to reclaim the Taliban stronghold of Marjah, a top Marine commander said yesterday as thousands of US troops and Afghan soldiers fought for a second day in Nato’s most ambitious effort yet to break the militants’ grip on Afghanistan’s dangerous south.

‘That doesn’t necessarily mean an intense gun battle, but it probably will be 30 days of clearing,’ Brigadier General Larry Nicholson said. ‘I am more than cautiously optimistic that we will get it done before that.’Squads of Marines and Afghan soldiers occupied a majority of Marjah, but gunfire continued as pockets of militants dug in and fought. Sniper fire forced Nicholson to duck behind an earthen bank in the northern part of the city where he toured the tip of the Marines’ front line held by Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines.’The fire we just took reflects how I think this will go – small pockets of sporadic fighting by small groups of very mobile individuals,’ he said.Explosions from controlled detonations of bombs and other explosives were being heard about every 10 minutes in the area.’There’s really a massive amount of improvised explosive devices,’ Nicholson said. ‘We thought there would be a lot, but we are finding even more than expected.’The second day of Nato’s largest offensive since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan also was marked by painstaking house searches.Using metal detectors and sniffer dogs, US forces found caches of explosives rigged to blow as they went from compound to compound down streets riddled with thousands of homemade bombs and mines. Shots continued to ring out in some neighbourhoods.They also discovered several sniper positions, freshly abandoned and booby-trapped with grenades.The troops also found two large caches of ammonium nitrate – a common ingredient in explosives – totaling about 4 000 kilograms, said Lieutenant Josh Diddams, a Marine spokesman.’We’re in the majority of the city at this point,’ Diddams said. He said the nature of the resistance has changed from the initial assault, with insurgents now holding ground in some neighbourhoods.’We’re starting to come across areas where the insurgents have actually taken up defensive positions,’ he said. ‘Initially it was more hit and run.’Nato said it hoped to secure Marjah, the largest town under Taliban control and a key opium smuggling hub, within days, set up a local government and rush in development aid in a first test of the new US strategy for turning the tide of the eight-year-old war.At least two shuras, or meetings, have been held with local Afghan residents – one in the northern district of Nad Ali and the other in Marjah itself, Nato said in a statement. Discussions have been ‘good,’ and more shuras are planned in coming days as part of a larger strategy to enlist community support for the Nato mission, it said.Afghan officials said yesterday that at least 27 insurgents had been killed in the operation.Two Nato soldiers were killed on the first day of the operation – one American and one Briton – according to military officials in their countries. At least seven civilians had been wounded, but there were no reports of deaths, Helmand provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi said.