Marjah: US-led troops were inching closer
to declaring victory over a Taliban stronghold in southern
Afghanistan as a senior commander said today militant
resistance had fallen dramatically.
Residents of the Marjah area in Helmand province were
streaming out in search of food and other supplies, risking
heavily-mined roads, humanitarian workers said.
Around 15,000 US, Afghan and NATO forces have been
fighting to capture the area from the Taliban and drug lords,
in the first test of a US-led troop surge battling to end the
eight-year Afghan war.
Taliban snipers and booby-trap bombs had hampered
progress in the battle for Marjah and Nad Ali on the
poppy-growing plain of the central Helmand River valley.
But US Marines commander Brigadier General Larry
Nicholson said resistance had dwindled to almost nought.
"We had 39 contacts on day two. We didn't have a single
one on day nine," he told AFP during a battlefield tour on day
11 of the offensive.
"Marjah is a symbol," he said, adding: "Our objectives
now are the opening of the markets and the roads."
Nicholson was speaking in Marjah after entering the
township with US and Afghan troops.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 21:15