NATO commanders say the start of a major US-led offensive against a key Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan has been a success, as the operation entered its second day.
The Organisation admitted, however, that major challenges lie ahead in the campaign, while many Taliban have been killed, as well as one British soldier and a US marine.
Diggers injured
Meanwhile, two ADF soldiers have been injured in a series of road-side bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan as the huge surge in Marjah went ahead.
The first blast involving the diggers happened east of Tarin Kowt, reports said, where Australian forces were patrolling the area.
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Another soldier suffered serious injuries when another road-side bomb detonated in the same area.
Thousands of US-led troops backed by helicopters Saturday stormed an Islamist stronghold in southern Afghanistan in NATO's biggest operation since the Taliban regime's overthrow in late 2001.
The injured Australians were not taking part in the same operation.
British forces suffered their first casualty of the operation when a soldier was killed in an explosion while on a vehicle patrol in Helmand province's Nad-e-Ali area, Britain's Defence Ministry said in London.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said five foreign soldiers died on Saturday in the south of Afghanistan, three of them US troops, but did not say if they had been involved in the Marjah attack.
As for the Marjah operation, Senior officials and NATO commanders said they were satisfied
with the operation's first day, with Mark Sedwill, NATO's senior civilian representative, saying it "appears to be positive".
"I can't yet say how long it will take for this military phase to get to the point where we can bring in the civilian support from the Afghan government, we hope that will happen quickly," Sedwill
told reporters in Kabul.
First test of Obama's surge
US Marines led the charge on Marjah on Saturday, a town of 80,000 in the central Helmand River valley controlled for years by militants and drug traffickers in the first major test of President Barack Obama's new surge policy.'
President Obama had received multiple updates on the offensive and would be briefed by McChrystal on Sunday morning, the White House said.
The "air insertion" involved helicopters, A-10s, Tornadoes and C-130 aircraft and was completed in less than three-and-a-half hours, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.
Operation Mushtarak ("together" in Dari) aims to clear the area of Taliban and re-establish Afghan sovereignty and civil services, Helmand Governor Mohammad Gulab Mangal said.
Troops drop in before dawn
US, British and Afghan soldiers dropped into Marjah from helicopters before dawn, immediately coming under fire and claiming their first Taliban victims within hours, Afghan army and Marines officers said.
Operation Mushtarak ("together" in Dari), as the assault involving 15,000 troops is known, aims to clear the area of Taliban and re-establish Afghan sovereignty and civil services, Helmand Governor Mohammad Gulab Mangal said.
Brown pays tribute
Prime Minister Gordon Brown paid tribute to the killed allied soldier's "ultimate sacrifice" which, brought the British death toll in the Afghanistan war to 258, and also praised the "exceptional role" of Britain's forces in the assault.
"This day will be long remembered as a day when a new phase of the campaign to win the support of the people of Afghanistan was initiated," Brown said.
Allies kill 'twenty'
At least 20 Taliban fighters were killed in the first hours of the assault, according to General Sher Mohammad Zazai, commander of the operation's Afghan troops.
"So far, we have killed 20 armed opposition fighters. Eleven others have been detained," he said, adding they were killed in separate engagements.
NATO commanders were satisfied with the operation's progress thus far, according to a senior British military spokesman.
The commanders were "very pleased with how it has gone," Major General Gordon Messenger told a briefing in London.
"The key objective has been secured," he said, explaining that the main aims for British troops were to secure the population centres and installations such as police stations in the Chah-e Anjir Triangle northeast of Marjah.
There had been some "sporadic fighting," but the Taliban appeared to be "confused and disjointed" and unable "to put up a coherent response," he said.
Mushtarak is the first major assault on a Taliban stronghold since Obama announced in December that he was sending an additional 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan in 2010.
The US and NATO already have 113,000 troops in the country battling the insurgents. NATO has pledged another 10,000, bringing the total to more than 150,000 by August.
'New strategy' in place
Mushtarak puts into practice the new US-led counter-insurgency strategy combining the military objective of eradicating the Taliban with the need to replace their brand of harsh control with civilian authority.
The battle for Marjah, an agricultural plain that is the source of most of the world's opium, is the first real test of the strategy, devised by US General Stanley McChrystal, commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan.
Wardak said the operation is the first of its kind against the insurgents - and NATO officials say it is the biggest since the insurgency began following the fall of the Taliban's 1996-2001 regime.
In the early phases of the operation Chinook helicopters filled the pre-dawn skies as troops led by US Marines were dropped into Marjah ahead of ground forces, a US Marines officer said.
"At 0230 this morning (2200 GMT), helicopters inserted combined forces into Marjah town," said Lieutenant Josh Diddams, spokesman for the US Marines at Task Force Leatherneck in Helmand.
He confirmed troops had come under fire from Taliban fighters, believed to number 400-1,000.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai warned the troops to do everything possible to avoid harming civilians, a sensitive issue among war-weary Afghans.
Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi, who earlier claimed casualties among the attacking forces, said: "We're engaging them in hit-and-run attacks."
ISAF said the combined force includes the Afghan army and police, with US Marines and army backed by British forces. Danish, Estonian and Canadian troops are also involved.
