Battle of Marjah, Feb. 2010

[jimmy olsen]

And the assault has begun.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7026348.ece

Taliban leaders flee as marines hit stronghold
Marie Colvin in Camp Leatherneck, Helmand

American marines landed by helicopter in a pre-dawn assault on the Taliban stronghold of Marjah, seizing two central shopping bazaars and firing rockets at Taliban fighters who attacked from mud-walled compounds.

As the marines secured their first objective, a jumble of buildings at the centre of the farming town, thousands of soldiers moved in on foot.

Harrier jets called in by the marines fired heavy-calibre machineguns at the Taliban. Fighting continued for hours, according to an embedded correspondent. Cobra gunships unleashed Hellfire missiles into bunkers and tunnels.

By nightfall, marines appeared to be in control of the centre of Marjah, home to about 75,000 people. "The Americans are walking by on the street outside my house," a bazaar resident said. "They're carrying large bags and guns but they're not fighting any more." Asked what he thought of their presence, he said: "I have hope for the future."

The offensive was aimed at overwhelming the insurgency's last haven in Helmand province and restoring government control.

Aircraft bombed compounds in southern districts of the town. US marines and Afghan troops swarmed in, searching for foreign fighters after intelligence reports said they had holed up there.

In the north of the city, helicopters landed several hundred marines in narrow alleys amid farm compounds.

At least 20 insurgents were reported killed and 11 were captured. The invading troops confiscated caches of Kalashnikov automatic rifles, heavy machineguns and grenades.

The greatest threat came from the extensive network of mines and booby traps. Assault troops ran into a huge number of improvised explosive devices — homemade bombs — as they tried to cross a canal into the town's northern entrance. Explosions ripped through the air as marines safely detonated bombs.

Marines used portable aluminium bridges to span the irrigation channels. The bridge over the main canal into Marjah from the north was elaborately rigged with explosives so they unfolded larger bridges from heavy-tracked vehicles to allow armoured troop carriers to cross.

Marine engineers, driving special mine-clearing vehicles called breachers, ploughed a path through fields on the town's outskirts. To clear a minefield, they launched rockets and deployed cables of plastic explosives designed to ignite roadside bombs.

Civilians said the Afghan troops were searching homes, a concession to conservative tribal sensitivities. Searches by foreign troops, particularly of homes with women, have infuriated traditional Pashtun residents.

"The troops are going house to house in my street," said Haji Abdul Mukadasa, a 48-year-old father of 13. He said the Afghan troops asked that all the women be put in one room, then searched the house while the "foreigners" waited outside.

He said he knew a young man who had been fighting with the Taliban but went home and took off his black turban when the offensive began. "They searched his house, and he said, 'No, I am not Taliban, this is my wife, this is my father'." Residents said most senior Taliban had fled the city.

Brigadier-General Larry Nicholson, commander of the marines in southern Afghanistan, was focused on avoiding civilian casualties while winning control of the town. He was well aware that to succeed he would have to secure it quickly and remain until Afghan forces and a credible local government could take over.

Even Nicholson's lowest-ranking commanders were carrying bags of cash to use at their discretion to pay for battle damage to houses or mosques or to fund a "quick impact projects" that immediately improve the lives of local people.

"I want to be able to get unemployed young men back to work, give them an alternative to the Taliban and a reason to get up in the morning," Nicholson said.

[The Brain]

Haji Abdul Mukadasa, a 48-year-old father of 13

Ed, take a look at your future. Fucking name-changer.

[CountDeMoney]

U.S. Marines from Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, protect an Afghan man and his child after Taliban fighters opened fire at them in the town of Marjah, in Nad Ali district, Helmand province, February 13, 2010. U.S.-led NATO troops launched a crucial offensive on Saturday against the Taliban's last big stronghold in Afghanistan's most violent province and were quickly thrown into a firefight with the militants.

Compelling photos.

[Ed Anger]

Haji Abdul Mukadasa, a 48-year-old father of 13

Ed, take a look at your future. Fucking name-changer.

Allahu Ackbar

[Syt]

Headline about the operation on a number of Austrian sites:
"12 civilians killed during offensive"

[Razgovory]

They don't want westerners to search the houses with their women in them but Afghan soldiers are far more likely to start raping people.

[citizen k]

US rockets slam into Afghan home, killing 12
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press


MARJAH, Afghanistan – Two U.S. rockets slammed into a home Sunday outside the southern Taliban stronghold of Marjah, killing 12 civilians after Afghanistan's president appealed to NATO to take care in its campaign to seize the town.

Inside Marjah, Marines encountered "death at every corner" in their second day of a massive offensive to capture this bleak mud-brick city filled with booby traps, hardcore Taliban fighters and civilians unsure where to cast their loyalty.

Marines confronted a fierce sandstorm as they ducked in and out of doorways and hid behind bullet-riddled walls to evade sniper fire. To the north, U.S. Army troops fought skirmishes with Taliban fighters, calling in a Cobra attack helicopter against the insurgents.

Insurgents littered the area with booby traps and explosives before the offensive, and the sound of controlled detonations — about three every hour — punctuated the day along with mortars and rocket fire.

"Our children are very scared by the explosions. When will it end?" asked Zaher, a 25-year-old poppy farmer who like many Afghans goes by one name.

The civilian deaths were a blow to NATO and Afghan efforts to win the support of residents in the Marjah area, a major goal of the biggest ground offensive of the eight-year war. Marjah, which had a population of 80,000 before the offensive, is a Taliban logistical center and a base for their lucrative opium trade which finances the insurgency.

The rockets were fired by a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, at insurgents who attacked U.S. and Afghan forces, wounding one American and one Afghan, NATO said in a statement. Instead, the projectiles veered 300 yards (meters) off target and blasted a house in the Nad Ali district, which includes Marjah, NATO added.

The top NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, apologized to President Hamid Karzai for "this tragic loss of life" and suspended use of the sophisticated HIMARS system pending "a thorough review of this incident," NATO said.

Before the offensive began Saturday, Karzai pleaded for the Afghan and foreign commanders to be "seriously careful for the safety of civilians."

Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omar said the president "is very upset about what happened" and has been "very seriously conveying his message" of restraint "again and again."

Allied officials have reported two coalition deaths so far — one American and one Briton, who were both killed Saturday. Afghan officials said at least 27 insurgents have been killed in the offensive.

In unrelated incidents in southern Afghanistan, NATO said two service members died Sunday — one from small-arms fire and the other from a road side bomb explosion. The international force did not disclose their nationalities, but the British defense ministry reported that a British soldier died Sunday of wounds suffered in an explosion.

Marines and Afghan forces met only scattered resistance when they swooped down by helicopter on the impoverished farming community before dawn Saturday. A day later, however, Taliban attacks were escalating, with small bands of fighters firing rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at troops moving slowly through the bombs and booby traps hidden in homes, residential compounds and along the rutted streets.

"It seems these guys want to get a bit closer," Lt. Carl Quist said as bullets whizzed overhead.

Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, a top Marine commander in the south, predicted it could take 30 days to clear Marjah because of all the hidden explosives.

Marines said they would have preferred a straight-up fight to what they called the "death at every corner" crawl they faced as they made their way through the town.

"Basically, if you hear the boom, it's good. It means you're still alive after the thing goes off," said Lance Corp. Justin Hennes, 22, of Lakeland, Florida.

To bypass heavily mined bridges, Marine engineers erected their own Vietnam-era metal spans over canals that irrigate opium poppy fields.

As Marines pushed deeper into town, gunfire forced them to take cover in buildings and compounds not yet cleared of booby traps. In one compound, a dog trained to detect explosives discovered a massive bomb hidden in a pile of trash.

Some troops complained that the strict rules issued by McChrystal to spare civilians were making their job more difficult and dangerous. Under the rules, troops cannot fire at people unless they commit a hostile act or show hostile intent.

U.S. soldiers operating near Marjah said the Taliban can fire on them, then set aside their weapon and walk freely out of a compound, possibly toward a weapons cache in another location.

A few crafty, determined insurgents can keep a larger force engaged for hours with some degree of impunity.

"The inability to stop people who don't have weapons is the main hindrance right now," said 1st Lt. Gavin McMahon of Brooklyn, N.Y. McMahon. "They know how to use our ROE against us," referring to the Rules of Engagement.

In areas where troops have wrested control from the Taliban, the second phase of the operation is under way — trying to convince civilians that their future lies with the government and not the insurgents.

Several shuras, or meetings with community leaders, have been held in Marjah and the surrounding Nad Ali district with more planned.

In one village, Qari Sahib, Afghan officials met with residents Sunday, promising to provide security, pave a road and build a school and a clinic. In exchange, they urged the villagers to renounce the Taliban and push militants to reintegrate into society. To show good faith, a resident who had been arrested for alleged militant activity was freed.

"This is all to the benefit for you people but we need your cooperation," Deputy Gov. Abdul Sattar Mirzekwal, told more than 100 villagers gathered outside a mosque. "Do not let the Taliban come into your area and disrupt security."

Most villagers at the shura expressed support for the government. Others expressed skepticism, laughing and paying little attention to the officials' promises.

Abdul Wali, a 23-year-old farmer, said he hoped people would give the government a chance.

"I'm afraid that if they do not join with the government, there will be fights, clashes and gunbattles in our village," he said. "I hope the government will fulfill all the promises it is making."



Associated Press writers Noor Khan in Kandahar, Rahim Faiez in Helmand province, and Deb Riechmann, Heidi Vogt and Tini Tran in Kabul contributed to this report.

[citizen k]

The mistaken killing of 12 Afghan civilians prompts U.S. apology

By SAEED SHAH
McClatchy Newspapers


Twelve Afghan civilians died Sunday after U.S. rockets mistakenly hit a house during the much-trumpeted offensive to clear the last Taliban stronghold in Helmand province, a loss of life that is likely to seriously undermine the operation and the renewed American-led mission to win the trust of the population.

The use of the rockets has been suspended pending a "thorough review" of the incident, the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.

An Afghan soldier and a Marine were injured in the firefight that preceded the rocket attack, on the second day of an operation to take control of the town of Marjah and the surrounding district of Nad Ali.

Operation Moshtarak, which means "together," is the biggest assault on the Taliban since the fall of the Islamic extremists' government in 2001 and the first major test of the new U.S. strategy for quelling the insurgency and stabilizing Afghanistan. A centerpiece to the offensive has been to minimize civilian casualties and the use of force.

A combined force of U.S., Afghan and British soldiers continued to come under sporadic fire Sunday, while facing constant danger from Taliban-laid mines, roadside bombs and booby-traps.

The large number of civilian deaths in a single incident calls into question the approach to the operation, and provides easy propaganda points to the Taliban enemy. Most of the 80,000 residents of Marjah stayed in their homes, despite weeks of public build-up to the assault.

After managing to avoid civilian casualties on the first day of the operation, which was declared a success, Sunday - Day Two - brought disaster.

A Marine unit embedded with Afghan soldiers, which came under sustained fire from two directions, called in a strike from heavy-duty munitions known as a Himars, which is a rocket system fired from a truck. Two rockets landed some 300 yards off target, killing the 12 civilians and wounding one.

"We deeply regret this tragic loss of life," said Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. general who leads international forces in Afghanistan. "The current operation in Central Helmand is aimed at restoring security and stability to this vital area of Afghanistan. It's regrettable that in the course of our joint efforts, innocent lives were lost."

McChrystal telephoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai to apologize for what he called the "unfortunate incident." The Afghan leader had cautioned the forces, as the operation began, to "exercise absolute caution to avoid harming civilians." The death of innocent Afghans in the war, often caused by misdirected air strikes, has inflamed public opinion in Afghanistan.

At issue is whether the use of the rockets was proportionate to the threat and why the weapon went so far wide of its intended target. The wrong co-ordinates could have been fed into the rocket launcher, or it suffered some technical failure, military officials believe.

An ISAF official, who could not be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the rockets were used after enemy fire made it impossible for helicopters to come in to evacuate the two injured soldiers. As evening fell in Afghanistan on Sunday, the Marine and Afghan unit were still under fire, more than 10 hours after the engagement began, he said.

"This (Himars) is a heavy thing to use under these circumstances but they used something that is usually very precise," the NATO official said. "They probably felt this was better than calling in an air attack."

The scale of operation, involving 15,000 soldiers, a large civilian presence, together with hundreds of Taliban fighting desperately against hopeless odds, and a town rigged with booby-traps, make civilian losses inevitable, analysts believe.

McChrystal, the pioneer of a new counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan, is faced with a delicate balance: the need to safeguard his own forces and the imperative of preventing civilian casualties. He has issued a series of directives to rein in the use of force, in an effort to win over an Afghan population often alienated and terrified by the use of air strikes and raids on homes. But that has brought criticism from within the military and in the U.S. that he was hamstringing soldiers in the field and putting their lives at risk.

"Civilian casualties have been one of the big issues that have been troubling the relationship between President Karzai, the Afghan people and international forces," said John Dempsey, head of the Afghanistan office of the U.S. Institute of Peace, an independent research organization.

So far in the operation, the Taliban resistance has been generally weak.

According to Dawood Ahmedi, a spokesman for the provincial governor of Helmand, 27 insurgents were killed so far, with five wounded and 11 arrested. The advancing force has uncovered 5,500 lbs of explosives.

"We are achieving our aims," Ahmedi said, speaking before the news of the civilian deaths. "The problem we are facing is the enemy has buried many mines, so the forces have to fight with both the enemy and the mines."

[DisturbedPervert]

They don't want westerners to search the houses with their women in them but Afghan soldiers are far more likely to start raping people.

Who cares?  Americans doing the searching can be used as propaganda.

[citizen k]

Caught in the open: a firefight with the Taliban
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press


BADULA QULP, Afghanistan – "Medic!" Bullets cracked through the dry grass. "Medic!"

"Who's hit?" someone yelled. The American soldiers were pinned down in a ditch Sunday, bodies prone in the mud.

"I don't know!" another voice shouted in the din of gunfire.

A U.S. soldier was down, shot in the chest by an insurgent near the besieged Taliban stronghold of Marjah. A Canadian soldier in the same patrol took a bullet in the front of his helmet, right where the center of his forehead was, like a bull's-eye. He was stunned, but unhurt.

Where were the insurgents shooting from? Which of the mud-walled compounds up ahead?

The firefight in the Badula Qulp region of Helmand province lasted about 45 minutes and tapered off after a Cobra helicopter shot a Hellfire missile into the building where the Taliban were believed hiding. Soldiers said they found the body of one suspected insurgent and heard another may have been buried quickly

It was a small skirmish in the grand scheme of the Afghan war. The focus of the fighting was to the southwest in Marjah, where U.S. Marines launched an offensive a day earlier.

But the intense gunfight showed the difficulty of fighting an enemy who knows the terrain, watches, waits and strikes when it chooses — frequently appearing to capitalize on Western rules designed to prevent civilian casualties.

The patrol began in the early afternoon, heading off a canal road and into farmland to the west. Fifty men: an American platoon, up to 30 Afghan soldiers and 10 Canadian troops who advise the Afghans. They moved slowly, in two columns. Two Afghan soldiers with metal detectors, searching for mines, led the way.

An Associated Press reporter and photographer accompanied the patrol.

The sky was clear, the air brisk, and it was very quiet. About 700 yards off the road, the soldiers saw four or five unarmed men, watching. The men moved away. Within minutes, gunfire erupted. Caught in the open, the patrol hit the earth and returned fire.

But it was an exposed position and hard to locate the source of fire. One group of soldiers picked up and sprinted, slowly, it seemed, with their cumbersome gear, for a shallow irrigation canal. It was cover, but not for long.

"I saw five guys, moving right to left," said Spc. Nathan Perry of Cedartown, Ga., hunkered in the ditch. He said he had felt bullets "around my feet, popping off."

A Canadian berated an Afghan soldier whose gunfire was too close to soldiers scattered elsewhere in the field.

"You've got friendlies there!" he screamed. "You've got friendlies there!"

"Hey sir, where's it coming from?" an American shouted to his platoon leader, 1st Lt. Gavin McMahon of Brooklyn, N.Y.

"Somewhere over there," McMahon said. He gestured west.

The men in the ditch pushed forward, trying to reach a low earthen berm for better cover. The Taliban had a line of sight straight down the canal. Rounds snapped a couple of feet away. To the AP reporter, a civilian with no military background, it seemed counterintuitive: running forward, toward the danger. Not back.

Then the American soldier got hit. The bullet hit the shoulder piece of his protective vest, and bounced down into his chest.

Spc. Benjamin McQuiston of Tucson, Ariz., was just ahead of the man, who cannot be identified until his family is notified in keeping with U.S. military regulations.

"When the shots went off, I heard him yelling. I thought he was scared. I was yelling too," McQuiston said later. "Then I heard him coughing. It sounded weird. I looked back and he was coughing up blood."

With shooting all around, soldiers cut away the injured man's shirt, and put a chest seal on the wound to prevent air entering.

"I'm going to be good," the man said. He was able to walk and had the energy to shout an obscenity at the Taliban.

McMahon was on the radio, calling for help. The mission had immediately shifted from fighting the Taliban to getting a wounded man to safety and treatment. The patrol pulled back, different groups laying down fire while others ran to cover, bunching up against mud walls.

But it wasn't over.

The AP reporter, hauling the wounded man's ammunition belt, was with two or three men who sprinted around a corner, straight into another ambush. The bullets flew past just a few feet away, maybe. It was hard to tell. It was also hard to tell what was cover and what wasn't. The only thing to do was to lie, crouch, curl up and hope.

There were glimpses of another world. A calf wandered in the midst of it all, moving its head this way and that, as though uncertain about which way to go. Up close, a big ant crawled over chunks of earth, oblivious to the adrenaline-fueled men trying to kill each other.

Spc. Andrew Szala of Newport, R.I., tried to keep the injured man talking, conscious. He chatted about the plot of a season of the American comedy series, "The Office," a send-up of white-collar life.

"Michael starts his own paper company. Pam goes with him. Jim stays behind," Szala said as the battle raged.

In the new ambush, a man was firing from above a green door. Spc. Richard French of Indianapolis was in the hatch of a Stryker, an American military vehicle, that pulled up on the canal road. He saw the man and opened fire with his M4 rifle.

"My first three rounds were tracers. I watched them go right into him. I watched him fall," French said later. "First time I ever killed anybody. That was interesting."

Close to the road and relative safety, soldiers saw a man in black walking. He was unarmed. They watched him in their scopes but did not shoot. Western forces in Afghanistan are operating under rules of engagement, or ROE, that restrict them from acting against people unless they commit a hostile act or show hostile intent. American troops say the Taliban can fire on them, then set aside their weapon and walk freely out of a compound, possibly toward a weapons cache in another location.

"The inability to stop people who don't have weapons is the main hindrance right now," McMahon said after the firefight. "They know how to use our ROE against us."

The patrol arrived back at its camp late in the afternoon. Sgt. 1st Class Norm Neumeyer of Pittsburgh walked over and told them their day wasn't over. They had to find the shooters. After a brief pause, they put their gear on and headed back down the road.

U.S. soldiers and one Afghan soldier exchange fire with insurgents during a patrol in the Badula Qulp area, West of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010. In the fight, one soldier was wounded and at least one insurgent was killed. The soldiers are operating in support of a U.S. Marine offensive against the Taliban in Marjah area.
(AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)



A Canadian soldier points at the direction of fire coming from insurgents to an Afghan National Army soldier during a firefight in the Badula Qulp area, west of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010. The soldiers are operating in support of a U.S. Marine offensive against the Taliban in Marjah area.
(AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

[Sheilbh]

Bit of a PR own goal with the name.  Apparently 'mushtarak' is a Dari word which works for the Afghan army who are mostly Tajik, but not for the Pashtun's who this operation's aimed at.

[Admiral Yi]

It works for Americans because of the smash pop hit Mushtarak Love.

[CountDeMoney]

It works for Americans because of the smash pop hit Mushtarak Love.

I don't know how I feel about this joke.  Still under consideration.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't know how I feel about this joke.  Still under consideration.

24 hour time delay fuse, then it will hit you like a supernova.

[citizen k]

US Marines seize Taliban headquarters, IDs, photos
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press


MARJAH, Afghanistan – After a fierce gunfight, U.S. Marines seized a strongly defended compound Friday that appears to have been a Taliban headquarters — complete with photos of fighters posing with their weapons, dozens of Taliban-issued ID cards and graduation diplomas from a training camp in Pakistan.

Insurgents who had been using the field office just south of Marjah's town center abandoned it by the end of the day's fighting, as Marines converged on them from all sides, escalating operations to break resistance in this Taliban stronghold in southern Helmand province.

Marines from Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines fought their way south from the town center Friday after residents told them that several dozen insurgent fighters had regrouped in the area.

Throughout the day, small groups of Taliban marksmen tried to slow the advance with rifle fire as they slowly fell back in face of the Marine assault.

"They know that they are outnumbered ... and that in the end they don't have the firepower to compete with us conventionally," said Capt. Joshua Winfrey of Tulsa, Okla., commander of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines.

As the Marines advanced, they found rows of abandoned bunkers dug alongside an irrigation canal that the Taliban had used to fire on them the day before. Located at a crossroads, the five abandoned bunkers, camouflaged under a layer of mud, looked out across an open field. In the near distance, large stones had been set up to help the Taliban site in on their targets.

Just behind the bunkers, the Marines found a compound, surrounded by a mudbrick wall, typical of family homes in the town.

Inside the compound, where a few chickens still wandered, Marines uncovered dozens of Taliban-issued ID cards, official Taliban letterhead stationery and government stamps.

They also found graduation diplomas from an insurgent training camp in Baluchistan, an area of southern Pakistan that borders Helmand province, along with photos of fighters posing with AK-47 assault rifles.

The insurgents had fled with their weapons and ammunition. The Marines said they'd been coming under fire all day — but never saw any of the elusive gunmen, who retreated to resume hit-and-run tactics using snipers and small gun squads to harass Marine lines.

Lima Company's advance was part of a move by several Marine companies to converge on a pocket of Taliban fighters from all four directions. The Marines believe they've cornered what appeared to be a significant Taliban fighting force.

"It seems that it's their last stand," Winfrey said.

NATO said one service member died Friday in a small-arms attack but did not identify the victim by nationality.

Six coalition troops were killed Thursday, NATO said, making it the deadliest day since the offensive began Feb. 13. The death toll for the operation stands at 12 NATO troops and one Afghan soldier. Britain's Defense Ministry said three British soldiers were among those killed Thursday.

No precise figures on Taliban deaths have been released, but senior Marine officers say intelligence reports suggest more than 120 have died. The officers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

The Marjah offensive is the biggest since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and a test of President Barack Obama's strategy for reversing the rise of the Taliban while protecting civilians.

Marjah, 360 miles (610 kilometers) southwest of Kabul, has an estimated population of 80,000 and had been under Taliban control for years.

Before dawn on Saturday, about two dozen elite Marines were dropped by helicopter into an area where skilled Taliban marksmen were known to operate, an officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.

A NATO statement said troops were still meeting "some resistance" from insurgents and that homemade bombs remain the key threat.

At a briefing in London, Maj. Gen. Gordon Messenger said the militant holdouts don't threaten the overall offensive but will take time to clear out.

"The levels of resistance in these areas has increased but not beyond expectation. We expected after the enemy had time to catch its breath, they would up the level of resistance, and that's happened," he said.

As U.S. and Afghan troops moved south Friday, they continued to sweep through houses, searching for bombs and questioning residents.

One man came forward and revealed a Taliban position a mile (1.6 kilometers) away. The man, who was not identified for security reasons, said he was angry because insurgents had earlier taken over his home.

He gave U.S. forces detailed information, saying more than a dozen Taliban fighters were waiting to ambush troops there. The position was rigged with dozens of homemade bombs and booby-traps, he said.

Outside of Marjah, U.S. and Afghan troops, backed by Stryker infantry vehicles, pushed into a section of mud-walled compounds that had been occupied by the Taliban in the Badula Qulp region, northeast of town.

Hit with small arms fire, the troops retaliated with machine guns and fired off a missile at a house where insurgents were believed to be hiding, and the militants quickly withdrew.



Associated Press writers Sylvia Hui in London, Rahim Faiez in Helmand province, Noor Khan in Kandahar and Tini Tran in Kabul contributed to this report.