FEB. 12, 2010
Coalition Troops Storm a Taliban Haven
By C. J. CHIVERS and DEXTER FILKINS
MARJA, Afghanistan -- Thousands of American, Afghan and British troops attacked the watery Taliban fortress of Marja early Saturday, moving by land and through the air to destroy the insurgency's largest haven and begin a campaign to reassert the dominance of the Afghan government across a large arc of southern Afghanistan.
The force of about 6,000 Marines and soldiers -- a majority of them Afghan -- began moving into the city and environs before dawn.
As Marines and soldiers marched into the area, several hundred more swooped out of the sky in helicopters into Marja itself. Marines from Company K, Third Battalion, Sixth Marines, landed near an intersection of two main roads at the northern fringes of Marja, piled out of the their helicopters and scattered into the houses and compounds around them.
In the quiet dark of 2:40 a.m., Company K met no resistance. But none of the Marines believed the peace would last the night.
"Basically, we are going into a main hornets' nest," said Capt. Joshua P. Biggers, Company K's commander.
Just after midnight, aircraft bombed the southernmost portion of Marja, where officials believed foreign fighters were hiding. Later, Marines and Afghan soldiers began setting up cordons to the northeast, south and west of the city, in anticipation of a ground assault that was expected to begin within hours.
The operation, dubbed Moshtarak, which means "together" in Dari, is the largest offensive military operation since the American-led coalition invaded the country in 2001. Its aim is to flush the Taliban out of an area -- about 75 square miles -- where insurgents have been staging attacks, building bombs and processing the opium that pays for their war.
Outside of Pakistan, Marja, a town of about 80,000 residents, stands as the Taliban's largest sanctuary, until now a virtual no-go zone for American, British and Afghan troops. The Taliban have been firmly entrenched there for about three years.
Moreover, the invasion of Marja is a crucial piece of a larger campaign to secure a 200-mile arc that would bisect the major cities in Helmand and Kandahar Provinces, where the Taliban are the strongest. That campaign, which is expected to last months, is designed to reverse the Taliban's momentum, which has accelerated over the past several years.
The best measure of that momentum: The 520 American and NATO troops killed in Afghanistan in 2009 were the most since the war began.
The American, Afghan and British troops began moving into Marja before first light, making their way through a broad, flat area crisscrossed by irrigation canals and scattered with opium factories as well as, in all likelihood, several hundred hidden bombs.
The troops that came in by air carried portable foot bridges and mine detectors. The troops moving in on armored personnel carriers were being led by enormous fortified vehicles designed to clear the roads of bombs.
American and Afghan commanders said they expected the heavy fighting to be over in a number of days. At that point, the commanders say, the overriding purpose of the campaign will take shape, when they bring in a fully formed Afghan government and security force that can hold the city so that the Taliban cannot return.
For all the speed with which they are hoping to move, American and Afghan officers say they are worried that homemade bombs -- hidden on roads, on footpaths and in houses -- could slow them down. Those bombs, though rudimentary, are often extraordinarily powerful, and they are now the primary killer of American and NATO service members here.
Several hundred Taliban fighters are believed to be inside the city as well, which could make for a close and bloody fight. Despite that, the NATO and Afghan attackers appear to enjoy a huge numerical advantage -- possibly more than 10 to 1.
The assault came as a surprise to no one. American commanders and Afghan officials have said publicly for weeks that an invasion of Marja was imminent, in an effort to chase away as many Taliban fighters as possible and keep the fighting, and civilian casualties, to a minimum. The hope is to win the support of local residents, even at the expense of letting Taliban get away.
Indeed, the American and Afghan troops moving into the city are setting for themselves a very high -- and possibly difficult--standard. They have urged the Afghans to stay in their homes rather than flee the city. But that could make it difficult to avoid killing at least some noncombatants.
"The message for the Taliban is: It will be easy, or it will be hard, but we are coming," Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, the commander of the United States Marines in Helmand Province, told the men of Company K before the operation began. "At the end of the day, the Afghan flag will be over Marja."
The American and Afghan strategy of broadcasting their intentions seems to have worked so far. Hundreds of Taliban fighters are believed to have the fled Marja in recent weeks, including many commanders -- a sign that the Taliban's leaders, who are believed to be based in the sprawling Pakistani city of Quetta -- have decided that Marja will be lost. "We know a bunch of them left," a senior NATO commander said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the operation.
Last week, Afghan intelligence agents captured the Taliban's "shadow governor" after he had fled Marja on the orders of his commanders in Pakistan, NATO officials said. The governor, whose name was not disclosed, was spotted by Afghan officials as he drove through Kandahar, probably on his way out of the country, officials said.
The capture of the local Taliban chief is the latest in a number of "shadow governors" who have been killed or captured in recent weeks by Afghan or American forces. Despite their titles, the Taliban "governors" often serve as the overall military commanders in an area, as well as taking charge of some civilian duties.
Indeed, American soldiers and, particularly, Special Operations teams have been busy for weeks, moving into and around Marja and killing and capturing Taliban leaders and soldiers.
Hundreds of Taliban fighters are believed to be hunkered down inside the city, including some Pakistani and other foreign fighters who are thought to be particularly zealous. In telephone interviews this week, Taliban commanders in Marja boasted that they had laid "thousands" of homemade bombs on the area's roads and footpaths.
"We have laid mines all over Marja," said a local Taliban commander named Hashimi, who spoke over the telephone this week. "We have ordered all Taliban fighters to stay and fight the Americans and the government."
Marja's civilian residents echoed the commander's warning, saying that Taliban fighters had mined most of the major roads that run through Trekh Nwar, Qarsaidi and Shorshorak at the approaches to Marja. Even as the invasion approached, Taliban fighters have continued to allow at least some residents to leave through a single open road leading out of the city.
"We've been telling the people, if you want to leave your houses, it's up to you, and if you want to stay here and get killed by NATO and Afghan forces, you can stay in your houses," said Hashimi, the Taliban commander.
"Only about 5 percent of the people have left the city -- but the rest, 95 percent, are still here," one of Marja's tribal elders said, speaking at a meeting of tribal elders in Lashkar Gah on Thursday. The elder spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear that he would be killed.
"People are really scared, especially about civilians getting killed," the Marja elder said. "The villagers ought to stay in their homes, if only because there are so many mines buried in the roads now."
Since taking command last spring, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal has sharply curtailed the use of firepower to kill Taliban soldiers, even in the heat of battle. For instance, he has tightly restricted the use of airstrikes in populated areas to kill insurgents -- except when troops are in danger of being overrun. And in meetings with his junior officers, General McChrystal has said repeatedly that using what he calls "fires" -- artillery and airstrikes -- may kill Taliban fighters, but risks losing the war by killing innocents and thereby alienating Afghans.
Indeed, the Marja operation will be the first real test of General McChrystal's strategy -- that is, whether it can spare civilian lives without compromising the safety of his men.
"The first test is, can you do this without killing a lot of civilians," the senior NATO commander said. "I would rather you take longer, I would rather you go deliberately. Whatever we do to limit that, actually, in my view, makes us look more powerful."
The centerpiece of the Marja operation is the Afghan government-in-waiting that will move into the town the moment the shooting stops. That is an attempt to compensate for past failures, when an inadequate government was left behind.
In May 2009, British and Afghan forces conducted a large military operation in Marja itself. It was a bigger than expected fight -- and the allies vowed to go back in again.
Today, they are.
C. J. Chivers reported from Marja, and Dexter Filkins from Kabul, Afghanistan.