Marines are making steady progress in Afghan assault

[David]

MARJAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) – U.S. Marines are making steady progress in one of the biggest NATO offensives in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001, but areas infested with roadside bombs are bogging them down, a spokesman said on Monday.

The assault is the first test of President Barack Obama's plan to send 30,000 more troops to seize insurgent-held areas ahead of a planned 2011 troop drawdown.

"We are making steady progress, but being very methodical about detecting and clearing routes in an area heavily saturated with IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices)," Marine Capt. Abraham Sipe told Reuters in response to an email, adding counts of militants killed of captured would not be provided.

Afghan officials said on Sunday that as many as 35 militants had been killed in the first two days of the offensive.

"In many parts of Marjah, we have seen very little opposition. There are areas where Marines have met with stiff resistance, but they are making steady progress throughout the area," Sipe said.

In an example of tough resistance from the Taliban, Marine units have tried twice since Sunday to reach a bazaar area in Marjah to clear enemy positions, but have been pushed back by heavy gunfire and snipers, Marines said.

Harrier jets and attack helicopters with hellfire missiles were called in to help.

Afghan officials said there had been some fighting.

"There was fighting last night and some sporadic clashes are still going on in Marjah. The enemy has suffered casualties," said Ghulam Mahaiuddin Ghori, a senior Afghan army general in Helmand.

EARLY PROGRESS

Afghanistan is a top foreign policy issue for Obama so failure here could be seen as damaging to his presidency.

Much of the operation's success in Helmand province depends on whether the administration wins residents' trust and Afghan troops must be able to keep the Taliban from returning.

NATO and the Afghan government's credibility rests on limiting civilian casualties, especially as NATO commanders told Marjah residents to stay home during the offensive.

Highlighting the dangers of fighting a resilient and unpredictable enemy, Helmand Province Governor Gulab Mangal said three would-be suicide bombers were gunned down on Sunday while trying to blow themselves up among troops.

"The situation moment by moment is going the way the government had expected. The forces are extending their advances from points they have captured and the operation is going on successfully," he told a news conference.

The Taliban could not be reached for comment on Monday.

But in a statement on the 20th anniversary of the withdrawal of defeated Soviet troops from Afghanistan, after battling Western-backed mujahideen fighters for nearly a decade, the Taliban said:

"The current occupiers of Afghanistan, like the Red Army, will face defeat.

"Twenty years after the defeat of the Red Army, today Obama, also in Afghanistan, has given one-and-a-half years to the commander of foreign invaders, (NATO Commander U.S. General Stanley) McChrystal, to prove his success against the Islamic Emirate."

NATO rockets killed 12 civilians on Sunday, the second day of a drive to impose Afghan authority on one of the Taliban's last strongholds in the country's most violent province.

The offensive has been flagged for weeks to persuade Taliban fighters to leave so the area can be recaptured with minimal damage or loss of civilian life, in the hope that the roughly 100,000 people there will welcome the Afghan administration.

Marjah, an area of farmland criss-crossed by canals, has long been a breeding ground for insurgents and lucrative opium poppy cultivation, which Western countries say funds the insurgency. Taliban officials accuse NATO of hyping up the importance of the district to make up for past losses.

The attack started on Saturday with waves of helicopters ferrying troops into Marjah and nearby Nad Ali district. The next day, U.S. Marines came under intense fire.