U.S. led forces in Afghanistan will launch a new military operation later this year to get full control of Kandahar

WASHINGTON   U.S. led forces in Afghanistan will launch a new military operation later this year to get full control of Kandahar, the former “capital city” of the Taliban, a senior U.S. official said on Friday. The top U.S. general in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, had already flagged his intention to target Kandahar following an offensive, now in its third week, to retake control of the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in neighboring Helmand province.

“If our overall goal for 2010 in Afghanistan is to reverse the momentum (of the Taliban) … then we think we’ve got to get to Kandahar this year,” said the senior Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity.Militants have over the past year made startling gains in the area around Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban movement. Reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Omar ruled Afghanistan from there before U.S.-led forces invaded in 2001.McChrystal described the city in his assessment of the war last August as the “key geographic objective” of the Quetta Shura Taliban, the main faction led by Mullah Omar.

The U.S. official was offering an assessment of the offensive in Marjah, which the administration views as key preparation for the potentially bigger battle of Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city.

TEST CASE FOR BIG PRIZE

Marjah is one of the biggest operations in the more than eight-year-old Afghan war. It is also an early test of President Barack Obama’s plan to add 30,000 more troops to win control of Taliban strongholds and eventually transfer them to Afghan authority.”The way to look at Marjah is that it is the tactical prelude to larger more comprehensive operations later this year in Kandahar city,” the administration official said.

“Bringing comprehensive population security to Kandahar city is really the centerpiece of operations this year and therefore Marjah is the prelude,” he said.The British commander of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan said last week that NATO forces would sweep toward Kandahar over the next six months.

On Thursday, Afghan authorities raised the Afghan flag over Marjah to signify the handover of control to the government from NATO troops led by U.S. Marines.The official said military commanders on the ground believed it would take several weeks yet to clear the remaining pockets of resistance in and around Marjah.”We are somewhere between clear and hold and that is pretty much on track. What is going to be more challenging than the clearing process will be the building process,” he said.

He acknowledged U.S. and Afghan security forces would not initially have the trust of Marjah’s residents.”It is not so much a matter of a physical contest about who controls the weapons, it’s a question of who controls the confidence of the people. That will only come after we are able to deliver,” he said.Washington hopes its latest offensive will decisively turn the momentum in a war that commanders say has been going the way of the Taliban.Under Obama’s new strategy, NATO and Afghan security forces are to secure population centers across Afghanistan so that the government can move in.(Reuters)

NATO airstrike in southern Afganistan killed at least 21 civilians

KABUL A NATO airstrike in southern Afganistan killed at least 21 civilians, the Afghan Interior Ministry said Monday, in an incident that could inflame already heightened sensitivities over noncombatant casualties.NATO forces confirmed in a statement that its planes fired Sunday on what it believed was a group of insurgents in southern Uruzgan province on their way to attack a joint NATO-Afghan patrol, but later discovered that women and children were hurt. The injured were transported to medical facilities.

The Afghan government and NATO have launched an investigation.Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said the Sunday morning airstrike hit three minibuses traveling on a major road near Uruzgan’s border with central Day Kundi province. There were 42 people in the vehicles, all civilians, Bashary said.The NATO statement did not say how many people died or whether all the occupants of the vehicles were civilians.

Afghan investigators on the ground have collected 21 bodies and two people are missing. Fourteen others were wounded, he said.”We are extremely saddened by the tragic loss of innocent lives,” NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in the statement. “I have made it clear to our forces that we are here to protect the Afghan people and inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their trust and confidence in our mission. We will redouble our effort to regain that trust.”

McChrystal apologized to President Hamid Karzai for the incident on Sunday, NATO said.On Saturday, Karzai had admonished NATO troops for not doing enough to protect civilian lives. During a speech to the opening session of the Afghan parliament, Karzai had called for extra caution on the part of NATO, which is currently conducting a massive offensive on the southern Taliban stronghold of Marjah in neighboring Helmand province.

“We need to reach the point where there are no civilian casualties,” Karzai had said. “Our effort and our criticism will continue until we reach that goal.”NATO has gone to great lengths in recent months to reduce civilian casualties — primarily through reducing airstrikes and tightening rules of engagement   as part of a new strategy to focus on protecting the Afghan people to win their loyalty over from the Taliban.

This is the largest joint NATO-Afghan operation since the Taliban regime was ousted from power in 2001. It’s also the first major ground operation since President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 reinforcements to Afghanistan.But mistakes have continued. In the ongoing offensive against Marjah, two NATO rockets killed 12 people in one home and others have gotten caught in the crossfire. At least 16 civilians have been killed so far during the offensive, NATO has said, though human rights groups claim the number is at least 19.

Last Thursday, an airstrike in northern Kunduz province missed targeted insurgents and killed seven policemen.Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” that Marjah was the opening salvo in a campaign to turn back the Taliban that could last 12 to 18 months.But the continued toll of civilian lives will only make it harder for NATO in its goal to win over the support of local Afghans against Taliban militants in the south.

The newly appointed civilian chief for Marjah arrived Monday to begin the task of restoring government authority after years of Taliban rule even though NATO troops are still battling insurgents in the area.District leader Abdul Zahir Aryan will be flying into Marjah for the first time since the massive NATO offensive began Feb. 13. He plans to meet with community leaders and townspeople about security, health care and reconstruction, he said in a phone interview Sunday.”The Marines have told us that the situation is better. It’s OK. It’s good,” Aryan said. “I’m not scared because it is my home. I have come to serve the people.”

NEAR MARJAH, Afghanistan U.S. and Afghan forces ringed the Taliban stronghold of Marjah

NEAR MARJAH, Afghanistan  U.S. and Afghan forces ringed the Taliban stronghold of Marjah on Thursday, sealing off escape routes and setting the stage for what is being described as the biggest offensive of the nine-year war. Taliban defenders repeatedly fired rockets and mortars at units poised in foxholes along the edge of the town, apparently trying to lure NATO forces into skirmishes before the big attack. “They’re trying to draw us in,” said Capt. Joshua Winfrey, 30, of Tulsa, Okla., commander of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines. Up to 1,000 militants are believed holed up in Marjah, a key Taliban logistics base and center of the lucrative opium poppy trade. But the biggest threats are likely to be the land mines and bombs hidden in the roads and fields of the farming community, 380 miles (610 kilometers) southwest of Kabul. The precise date for the attack has been kept secret. U.S. officials have signaled for weeks they planned to seize Marjah, a town of about 80,000 people in Helmand province and the biggest community in southern Afghanistan under Taliban control. NATO officials say the goal is to seize the town quickly and re-establish Afghan government authority, bringing public services in hopes of winning support of the townspeople once the Taliban are gone. Hundreds of Afghan soldiers were to join U.S. Marines in the attack to emphasize the Afghan role in the operation. A Taliban spokesman dismissed the significance of Marjah, saying the NATO operation was “more propaganda than military necessity.”

Nevertheless, the spokesman, Mohammed Yusuf, said in a dialogue on the Taliban Web site that the insurgents would strike the attackers with explosives and hit-and-run tactics, according to a summary by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant Internet traffic. In preparation for the offensive, a U.S.-Afghan force led by the U.S. Army’s 5th Stryker Brigade moved south from Lashkar Gah and linked up Thursday with Marines on the northern edge of Marjah, closing off a main Taliban escape route. Marines and Army soldiers fired colored smoke grenades to show each other that they were friendly forces. U.S. and Afghan forces have now finished their deployment along the main road in and out of Marjah, leaving the Taliban no way out except across bleak, open desert – where they could easily be spotted. The Army’s advance was slowed as U.S. and Afghan soldiers cleared the thicket of mines and bombs hidden in canals and along the roads and fought off harassment attacks along the way by small bands of insurgents. Two U.S. attack helicopters fired Hellfire missiles at a compound near Marjah from where insurgents had been firing at the advancing Americans. Marines along the edge of the town exchanged fire with insurgents. There were no reports of casualties.