US and Afghan forces have reportedly 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 Captain Joshua Winfrey, 30, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, 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 centre 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, 610 kilometres southwest of Kabul.
The precise date for the attack has been kept secret. US officials have signalled 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 US Marines in the
attack to emphasise 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 website 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.
'No way out' for Taliban
US 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 US 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 US 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.
British soldier killed
A British soldier was killed in a bombing on Thursday in Helmand province, the Ministry of Defence announced in London.
The soldier died in the Babaji district of the violence-wracked Helmand Province, a statement said.
A spokesman for Task Force Helmand, Lieutenant Colonel David Wakefield, said: "He was on a foot patrol at the time, part of the ongoing operations in that area to protect the local population from insurgents.
"He will be sorely missed by us, his comrades, and his steadfast courage will not be forgotten."
The soldier's next of kin have been informed.
The death takes the number of British service personnel killed in the war since 2001 to 257, more than the 255 Britons killed in the Falklands conflict in 1982.
US Troops injured in blast
Meanwhile, an explosion rocked a joint Afghan-US combat post in eastern Afghanistan Thursday, injuring "several" US troops, the Pentagon said.
"An explosion occurred at a joint ANSF/ISAF combat outpost in Paktiya province, eastern Afghanistan this evening," the US military said in a statement.
"Several ISAF servicemembers from the United States were injured. There were no reported fatalities to ISAF or ANSF personnel," it said.
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