Operation Moshtarak Thread: Afghan flag hoisted over Marjah

[fatman17]

U.S. winds down Afghan assault but bigger one on way

by Nasrat Shoib Nasrat Shoib – Fri Feb 26,2010

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) – US-led forces were Saturday winding down one of their biggest offensives yet in Afghanistan, but an official said it was a mere prelude to a larger assault in the works on the Taliban bastion of Kandahar.

The two-week Operation Mushtarak ("Together") had symbolically culminated Thursday when authorities hoisted the Afghan flag in Marjah, a poppy-growing southern area that had eluded government control for years.

A US commander based in Kandahar said that most combat operations had subsided, although US, British and Afghan troops would still need several weeks to exert control over more remote villages in the area of Helmand province.

"There will be some sporadic fighting, I believe, some tough areas where there are still a few holdouts," Brigadier General Ben Hodges told the PBS Newshour on US public television.

"I think most of the significant combat operations, though, will have subsided," Hodges said.

"I think the majority of the enemy has either been killed or driven out or blended back into the population," he said.

The assault has been billed as the biggest military operation since the 2001 US-led invasion ended the Taliban regime, and is a major test of US President Barack Obama's troop surge aimed at turning the tide in Afghanistan.

In a vivid reminder of the Taliban's reach, suicide bombers on Friday targeted guesthouses in the heart of the capital Kabul, killing 16 people including Westerners and Indians.

The new US-led counter-insurgency strategy, designed to allow Western troops to be drawn down by mid-2011, dictates military preparation and assault, then establishing civilian security and services such as hospitals and schools.

More than 4,000 families left Marjah amid the assault, many of them taking refuge in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah as food, medicine and other supplies ran low, humanitarian workers said.

But NATO said bazaars were opening and that rebuilding work had already begun on roads and bridges destroyed in the fighting. It warned, however, of the danger of hidden bombs.

In Washington, a senior Obama administration official said that Operation Mushtarak was just a preview of a wider campaign in the works to exert control in Kandahar, Afghanistan's second largest city.

"I think the way to look at Marjah, it's the tactical prelude to larger, more comprehensive operations later this year in Kandahar city," the official said on condition of anonymity.

"It's a goal for 2010. If our overall goal for 2010 is to reverse the momentum and gain time and space for the Afghan capacity, we have to get to Kandahar this year," he said.

Kandahar is a cultural home to the Pashtun people and was the birthplace of the Taliban movement, which imposed an austere brand of Islam over the country from 1996 to 2001.

"It's their center of gravity," the administration official said of Kandahar, describing the US goal as being able to bring "comprehensive population security" to the city.

Alexander Vershbow, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, said that the Marjah offensive was "crucially important" for the Obama strategy.

"The goal of the new strategy is to reverse the Taliban's momentum, secure the population, and redouble efforts to build the Afghan national security forces so that they can take over security responsibility as conditions permit," he told reporters.

The anonymous administration official on Friday pointed to successes in a key part of the strategy -- Pakistan.

"In the last nine months we've seen a significant strategic shift in Pakistan," the official said. "That strategic shift is the decision by the Pakistani security forces to take the fight against the Pakistani Taliban."

Pakistan has launched offensives in its lawless tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, where much of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda leadership is believed to be based.

US officials have long suspected that elements in Pakistan's powerful spy agency have abetted extremists.

 

[fatman17]

NATO, Pakistan sharing tactical plans: US official

WASHINGTON: A senior US official on Friday said that NATO commanders in Afghanistan for the first time have begun traveling to Pakistan to share plans for military operations.

The apparent aim is to make sure that terrorists do not slip back and forth over the largely unmarked, mountainous border to escape coalition forces or the Pakistan Army. According to the official the sharing of tactical information represented a new level of cooperation for the military forces battling the Taliban, al Qaeda and other militants. ap

 

[fawwaxs]

Hard part in Marjah has only just begun

KABUL: The hardest fighting is over, but the battle for Marjah is just beginning.

The outcome of last month's military campaign was never in doubt. With 15,000 combined Nato and Afghan troops pouring in to oust an estimated 400-1,000 insurgents, it was simply a question of how long it would take to clear the southern Afghan city that belonged to the Taliban for years.

Now, the fight for Marjah focuses on keeping the population safe and — perhaps harder — setting up the first clean and effective civilian administration there in decades.

The war in Afghanistan is not just about seizing territory. Western forces, in enough numbers and backed by enough firepower, can do that almost anywhere against scattered insurgent squads with inferior weaponry, however determined the Taliban are, however inventive and deadly their booby traps and ambushes.

In the long term, the war is more about perceptions of authority and commitment than casualty tolls and objectives cleared, more about the Afghan civilians and what they believe and fear.

Nato saw Marjah — a Taliban logistics centre and drug-smuggling hub and the largest southern city under Taliban rule — as a key prize in Helmand, the southern Afghan province they've struggled to reclaim from the insurgents.

But even more than its strategic worth is Marjah's value as a symbol. The operation is intended to showcase how Nato plans to win the war — by putting civilians first. Successfully grafting in a workable government could provide a model for allied advances into more parts of the south, where the Taliban still control large swaths of the countryside.

In Marjah, the challenge was never the "clearing phase," as military commanders call the military offensive. It's the "holding phase" that follows: getting functional Afghan forces to control the area for good.

In fact, Marjah already has been "cleared" at least three times: first shortly after the 2001 invasion that ousted the Taliban's hard-line regime, again in 2007 and, most recently, in March of last year.

In 2002, this AP reporter witnessed similar scenes to today: government agents with rifles and stacks of American dollars trying to establish control.

"We're trying to walk in step with the international community," a deputy police chief said at the time.

But the Western-backed government did not sustain its efforts. The difference this time, according to the plan, is that at least 2,000 Marines and half as many Afghan forces are slated to stay and keep the insurgents from returning.

Much will depend on whether the Afghan government, plagued by corruption, can put a convincing Afghan face on what happens in Marjah; on whether cash will come to fix roads, bridges and houses, to build schools and clinics; on whether farmers will hew to a planned seed program for legitimate crops instead of poppy; and whether Nato troops will stay long enough to see through change and stabilization.

"We need time. We need to build the trust of the people because the people are scared," Ministry of Defence spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi said Thursday in Kabul.

Neither the Taliban nor the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, can prevail without the backing, willing or forced, of Afghanistan's civilian population.

Both sides know this, and so they fight a parallel conflict, without bombs and bullets. Like campaigners in a heated electoral contest, they make promises and proclamations, and trash-talk their adversary's claims.

Retreating insurgents, endured or tolerated rather than loved by many Afghans in areas under their control, told Marjah's villagers that Americans would rape and plunder. That didn't happen.

Civilians, in fact, led American forces to 70 per cent of concealed insurgent bombs that have been discovered in an area near Marjah where the US Army 5th Stryker Brigade operated, said Capt. Nolan Rinehart, a US Army intelligence officer. That shows some degree of cooperation, even though many villagers are wary.

"They're very hesitant because we're new; we're foreign," Rinehart said. "It's hard to maintain a good perception (of international forces) if we keep jumping around from place to place because the Taliban will move right back in when we leave."

US Marines are settling in for a while in Marjah, but the civilians will be watching closely and judging harshly. The Western-backed Afghan government has a public platform there for the first time in a long time; the insurgents' pitch comes from the underground, or proxies.

A meeting last week between village leaders near Marjah and a district official was a case in point. The official, Asadullah, spoke softly about how the government can only provide services with public support; how Western troops pay compensation for damage to property, unlike Russian invaders during the Cold War in the 1980s; and how the Taliban creed of holy war was defunct.

Then a man leaped to his feet and denounced US troops for disrupting lives.

American soldiers said the speech was Taliban "IO," a reference to Information Operations, a military term for propaganda and other efforts to influence people. They later pulled the man aside and used a hand-held biometrics device to store his retina image and other data.

There will be distractions in Marjah. Big military operations will get under way elsewhere. Attacks in Marjah won't stop, even though most of the Taliban who once ruled there are either dead or injured, lying low or relocating to more friendly turf in the south.

"This is a 12 to 18-month campaign we are embarking on. It's not going to be easy," Army Gen. David Petraeus, commander of American operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Tuesday. He asserted that after more than eight years of fighting in Afghanistan, the US is finally getting enough troops, diplomats and organizational structure to be able to keep extremist groups from taking over again there. President Barack Obama sent an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan earlier this year.

Of course, Afghan forces must provide security long after Western troops are gone, and whether they are up to the task is a question. Some Afghan soldiers fought aggressively in the Marjah campaign, and some were unreliable.

American restraint on the battlefield almost certainly reduced casualties among the civilian population, but soldiers sometimes struggled to connect with villagers. In one awkward exchange, a soldier from a military intelligence battalion told a villager that he wanted to build a hospital closer to his home. A soldier next to him interrupted before the Pashto-speaking interpreter could translate.

"Don't make any promises," he said quietly. The translator remained silent, and the conversation ended there.
DAWN.COM | World | Hard part in Marjah has only just begun

 

[fawwaxs]

Two more US-led troops have been killed in separate incidents in volatile southern Afghanistan amid the climbing casualty counts among foreign troops.

US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement that one of its soldiers died in a Thursday bomb strike in an area where Operation Moshtarak is continuing.

According to the ISAF statement, the other soldier was killed in a vehicle accident.

With the latest incidents, the death toll this year for foreign soldiers stationed in Afghanistan has hit 111.

Operation Moshtarak was launched in Marjah on February 13, 2010, with the aim of eradicating Taliban militants there.

 

[fawwaxs]

 

[fawwaxs]

After Marja, ‘Kandahar Will be Next, Mullen

CORONADO, Calif., , March 4, 2010 – The nation’s top military officer today said the focus of American troops and their allies in southern Afghanistan would shift to Kandahar following an ongoing offensive in the former Taliban stronghold of Marja.

The comment by Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, marks the first time the senior-most military leader confirmed what many believed would be the next phase in a series of operations that have been characterized thus far as an early test of the new U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.

“I think General McChrystal’s been pretty clear that the focus will turn to Kandahar,” he told reporters at the Naval Air Station North Island here, referring to Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Mullen added: “His main effort is really in the south, and Kandahar will be next.”

The chairman noted that operations are ongoing in central Helmand Province’s Marja section, where military officials this week said the mission had shifted from clearing out the enemy to holding the gains the operation has brought about.

“We’re not through Marja,” Mullen said. “It’s been a very tough operation, (and) will continue to be.”

For months before the operation in Marja, U.S. and NATO military officials noted the strategic importance of the southern Afghanistan region and the goal to clear the area of Taliban fighters. The rationale for such a declaration of intent before the Marja offensive was to allow low-level Taliban fighters the chance to flee, and to warn civilians of the impending attack, officials said.

But what at first appeared to be a rare glimpse at the military’s playbook may actually signal an intention on the part of defense officials to disclose operations in southern Afghanistan before they come to fruition. Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. Central Command, called Marja the “initial salvo” in a campaign that could last 12 to 18 months.

Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John M. Paxton Jr., director of operations for the Joint Staff, told lawmakers on Capitol Hill last month of the military’s intent to focus on Kandahar following the first phase of operations.

Asked by senators why the campaign began in Helmand instead of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban, Paxton replied that McChrystal concluded in his assessment in September that Helmand was at the heart of the coalition’s four-point mission to protect the Afghan people, enable Afghan security forces, neutralize the insurgency and allow for governance.

“General McChrystal’s plan was for Kandahar to be a place we would go, but central Helmand is where the insurgency had the most-safe haven,” Paxton said during the Feb. 22 hearing before Senate Armed Services Committee. “I think you’ll see Kandahar will closely follow, but central Helmand had to come first.”

As the military operations of the roughly 15,000 NATO and Afghan forces that have been engaged in Operation Moshtarak since Feb. 13 begin to wind down, the focus in Marja has shifted from what the military calls the ‘clear’ phase to the ‘hold’ phase.

Marja has been characterized as representing the first test of President Barack Obama’s strategy to add 30,000 more troops in the fight against Afghanistan-based insurgents. As the initial phase of operations comes to a close, Deputy Defense Secretart William Lynn said this week that Marja has emerged as an area where hope is returning.

“Because of our new strategy, and President Obama's deployment of additional troops,” Lynn told the American Legion in Washington, “Marja is one of many cities in Afghanistan that has begun to have hope.”

Defense.gov News Article: After Marja, ?Kandahar Will be Next,? Mullen Says

 

[fawwaxs]

US commander says security bolstered in Kandahar

KABUL — Security and military intelligence operations are being reinforced around Kandahar, the largest city in southern Afghanistan and site of the next phase of the allied military offensive against the Taliban, the American commander for the country said.

Afghan, U.S. and NATO forces are planning a major operation later this year in Kandahar province, which is next to Helmand province where thousands of troops just seized the district of Marjah from insurgents. The southern push is part of a new counterinsurgency strategy and follows President Barack Obama's decision to send 30,000 new American troops to Afghanistan to reverse insurgent gains.

"Instead of putting a date certain on which there would be a climactic military operation, I tell you that the process has already begun," the top commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, said about Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual birthplace.

"It's a complex process that's going to involve a number of military things to increase security, along with police, but it will also involve a lot of political activities as well," he said.

Force levels already are being increased in some districts, including Arghandab, northwest of the city, and Panjwayi to the southwest, McChrystal said Wednesday in a video conference with reporters at the Pentagon. He said Defense Secretary Robert Gates had significantly increased the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support to the NATO troops.

"If you control the environs around Kandahar, you go a long way to controlling Kandahar," he said. "Unlike a Marjah operation, where there was a D-day ... it is more likely that this will be a series of activities that target different parts of it to increase that security."

Former British ambassador to Afghanistan Mark Sedwill, who is NATO's current senior civilian representative, said work also was being done in the run-up to the offensive to resolve political tensions and reinforce government institutions.

McChrystal said the work with political leaders will be supported by security operations — some in partnership with the Afghan National Police.

Earlier this week, the Afghan government said it would provide more than 1,000 police reinforcements for Kandahar province in response to Taliban attacks that killed dozens of people last weekend. Kandahar Gov. Tooryalai Wesa asked for more police after a series of bombings killed at least 35 people in Kandahar city. The Taliban called the attacks a "warning" that they are ready for the war's next phase.

Training Afghan national security forces is a priority for NATO so that Afghans can eventually take over security in their own nation.

In Kabul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke Thursday at a graduation ceremony for 212 new military officers at the National Military Academy in Afghanistan. The academy eventually will commission 600 new lieutenants a year.

He told the graduates the nation is counting on them to defend the next generations of Afghans eager to see peace and stability after three decades of conflict. The army must be "strong like a mountain" and impervious to foreign forces, he said.

In the past 12 months, 1,410 Afghan police officers have been killed and 2,388 wounded while responding to 4,171 enemy attacks, the Interior Ministry reported Thursday. Of the total enemy engagements, 225 involved suicide attacks; 1,824 were linked to roadside mine explosions. The ministry said police found and detonated an additional 1,868 roadside bombs.

Army Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, director of the military's Joint Improvised Explosive Devices Defeat Organization, told the House Armed Services Committee this week that Afghanistan has experienced a near doubling of IED events in the past year, reflecting a resurgent Taliban.

The Associated Press: US commander says security bolstered in Kandahar

 

[fawwaxs]

Karzai faces anger in Marjah


HELMAND PROVINCE - Afghan President Hamid Karzai faced an angry reception from people in the southern town of Marjah following a major military assault against the Taliban.

During the unannounced visit on March 7, 10 days after the Afghan flag was raised over this former insurgent stronghold in Helmand province, Karzai said the expulsion of the Taliban meant full-scale reconstruction and development could get underway.

"Marjah will not be recaptured by the opposition," Karzai assured a meeting of tribal elders, officials and ordinary people in the



center of Marjah, a ramshackle string of villages and markets known principally for its booming opium trade.

"You will have a good life, full security, employment opportunities and good governance," he added, promising swift delivery of schools, clinics, roads and other infrastructure to the local population of around 50,000 people.

Beginning on February 13 and involving some 15,000 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Afghan troops, Operation Moshtarak, which means "together" in Dari, expelled Taliban forces from the area after only limited resistance. Now Afghan and international authorities are under pressure to clear the surrounding farmland of hundreds of insurgent mines and fulfill development pledges.

Used to hearing generous messages from the Kabul leadership in recent years, local people gathered in Marjah were skeptical of Karzai's promises, and also lambasted the performance of his appointees in the region.

"The people you have sent here have been cruel to us," said one elderly man who rose from the crowd, visibly shaking with anger as he addressed the president. "We do not want such individuals," said the man, who said officials had been involved in abductions and extortion of money from local farmers.

His comments drew applause from the crowd, and after nodding in agreement, Karzai berated one official who was named, saying, "Shame on you!"

People who lost family members in the fighting also challenged the president, who was accompanied on the visit by the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, United States army General Stanley McChrystal.

"We are fed up with this life of ours," said a man called Harun, whose sister-in-law was killed and two brothers wounded by a shell burst during the battles. "If you do not help us in our predicament, don't provide us with employment opportunities in our area and don't support us, then will you ever help our orphans?"

The number of civilian casualties in the operation remains disputed. According to Helmand governor Gulab Mangal, 15 people died, while local people put the figure at 40. In the worst incident confirmed by NATO, 12 civilians died when two American rockets struck a house.

Led by United States Marines, the operation is considered the first big test of President Barack Obama's new "surge" strategy for Afghanistan. An extra 30,000 US troops are being deployed in an effort to break the Taliban's grip on areas like Marjah.

While hundreds of Afghan police sent to help keep the peace remain widely distrusted, Karzai urged Marjah's population to actively support the national security forces.

"If you want good security and governance, I ask the people and tribal elders to enroll your sons in the government forces so they will be trained and be able to serve and protect their country," said Karzai, who took the day's criticism in his stride.

"Well they are our people and we exchanged views, I heard them and they heard me, they had some very legitimate complaints," he said after the meeting. "They feel abandoned, which in many cases is true, and this sense of abandonment has to go away."

Some local people praised the president for visiting such a remote area and listening to their grievances and demands.

"No such senior official had ever visited Marjah before," resident Sediqollah said. "Moreover, there is no more fighting here now and the Taliban no longer come to my house every day and night and demand food. Karzai's speech shows that life in Marjah is going to improve."

But others who fled to the provincial capital Lashkar Gah ahead of the operation said the situation was still too volatile to return to their homes.

"I cannot go to Marjah because the foreigners arbitrarily search our houses there and disrespect us, which is outrageous," said a local man named Ostad. "It is better not to go there anymore."

To underscore the fragile security situation, insurgents fired several rockets at Marjah during Karzai's speech.

While a Taliban spokesman said in a text message sent to the Institute for War and Peace Reporting that several Afghan security officers died in the salvo, local people said nobody was injured.

"A rocket came but landed far from the meeting area and did not explode," Marjah resident Khan Wali said.

Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan

 

[Parashuram1]

US-NATO will be defeated Inshallah.

Only 2000 Mujahdeen in front of 30000 US-NATO+Afghan forces, with tanks,gunship support.

US-NATO could not be able to defeat Afghan Mujahdeen in eight years , how they could defeat them now?

Considering your support of terrorism I shall point out something with your propaganda numbers. The Taliban are able to stop ISAF simply because they want more and more civilian casualties to prove the ISAF efforts as "occupiers" which is not the case so as to earn sympathy from fanatics and terrorist-sympathizers.

 

[warpig]

Considering your support of terrorism I shall point out something with your propaganda numbers. The Taliban are able to stop ISAF simply because they want more and more civilian casualties to prove the ISAF efforts as "occupiers" which is not the case so as to earn sympathy from fanatics and terrorist-sympathizers.

agreed !!!
if this so called freedom fighters of taliban (mujahed)
are so good and high mighty why not leave the civilian,s and popolated areas?
why not fight in the deserts ? why they are suside bombing their own people?
what is the point of Zebh (killing a person with a knife by beheding him/her) the innecont?

 

[pakdefender]

This operation was done with great fanfare , it's was paraded as "proof" that the US/NATO trained Afghan forces are ready to operate on their own. It has turned out to be not the case

Afghan forces lose 4,000 a month to casualties, desertion - U.S. general| Reuters

United States invested to the tune of 65 billion USD to prop up The Afghan National Army. It now needs to step up to the challenge posed by afghan insurgents , call them taliban or whatever.