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WASHINGTON, Feb. 22, 2010 – The coalition’s operations in Helmand province are the first stage of a broader offensive to change the course of the fight in Afghanistan, Defense Department leaders told the Senate Armed Services Committee today. Operation Moshtarak, as the offensive launched Feb. 13 is known, is “going well so far,” Michele Flournoy, undersecretary of defense for policy, said in a briefing to the committee. “This really is the first large-scale effort to change how we’re doing business.” Flournoy and Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John M. Paxton Jr., director of operations for the Joint Staff, said Moshtarak is...

KABUL, Feb. 13, 2010 – Key military clearing operations for Operation Moshtarak have begun in the central part of Afghanistan’s Helmand province, Afghan government officials announced today. The clearing operations follow smaller-scaled shaping operations that have helped to set the conditions for this new phase, officials said. The combined force comprises the Afghan National Army, Afghan National Police, International Security Assistance Force Regional Command South and the Helmand provincial reconstruction team. The operations now under way are designed to clear the region of insurgents and set the conditions for the Afghan government to introduce increased security, stability, development, rule of...

Offensive Against Taliban Starts Assault ... helicopters fly troops in to start the offensive against the Taliban Andy Bush  A FORCE of more than 15,000 Allied troops stormed into Taliban strongholds early today as commanders heralded "the beginning of the end for the insurgency". Under cover of darkness, an awesome array of troops dropped into the badlands of the Helmand valley.A first wave of 1,200 British troops - out of a total of 4,000 in the operation - were involved as the mission started.Our Boys took off from Camp Bastion in a fleet of helicopters as Operation Moshtarak got underway...

NEAR MARJAH, Afghanistan – Helicopter-borne U.S. Marines and Afghan troops swooped down on the Taliban-held town of Marjah before dawn Saturday, launching a long-expected attack to re-establish government control and undermine support for the militants in their southern heartland. ... Marine commanders say they expect anywhere between 400 to 1,000 insurgents to be holed up inside this southern Afghan town of 80,000 people in Helmand province, including more than 100 foreign fighters.

NEAR MARJAH, Afghanistan – U.S. and Afghan soldiers linked up with Marines on the outskirts of 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 Capt. Joshua Winfrey, 30, of Tulsa, Okla., commander of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines. Up to 1,000 militants...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) – NATO commanders urged the Taliban to surrender as troops dug in Monday for a major assault on a key insurgent stronghold in southern Afghanistan, sending thousands of residents fleeing. Final preparations for battle with Taliban militants around Marjah in Helmand province, which could begin within days, had begun, a senior Marines commander said. "The combat operations for the assault of Marjah have begun this morning," Lieutenant Colonel James "Matt" Baker, of 1st Battalion 3rd Marines Regiment told AFP, referring to the final phase of assault preparations. Related article: Taliban, heroin hold sway in Marjah The Taliban...

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (AFP) – Afghan men, women and children fearing imminent fighting between the Taliban and US troops, loaded up trucks on Monday and streamed out of one of the world's main sources of heroin. Wrapped in blankets to fend off the winter chill, families packed up goats, furniture and clothes, clogging roads with taxis, cars and tractors in a major exodus to safety, dodging roadside bombs planted to kill US and NATO troops. "We left the area because lots of aircraft were flying over and lots of forces were moving back and forth," Shir Ali Khan told AFP...

HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan, Jan. 19, 2010 – Two men donned flak jackets and Kevlar helmets here Jan. 15 -- one set coyote brown, the other forest green, each with an emblem of their nation. Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Galen P. Hafner and Afghan National Army Staff Sgt. Gulwazir Harin pose for a photo before setting out on a patrol in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, Jan. 15, 2010. Marines and Afghan soldiers train, eat, work and fight alongside one another. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. James W. Clark  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Stepping out of their tent and...

DELARAM, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Hundreds of U.S. Marines were engaged in a second day of fighting on Monday with Taliban insurgents as they tried to clear a militant stronghold in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, U.S. officials said. Thirteen insurgents were killed in the early hours of Monday when the Marines called in a Hellfire missile strike from an unmanned Predator drone, U.S. Marine Major Dale Highberger, second in command of the operation, said. Around 10,000 U.S. Marines moved into Helmand in spring last year, more than doubling the numbers of other NATO forces in the province, who had reached what...

Blog: "Report: Taliban, Not Government, Collecting Payments For Electricity Bills From Consumers In Helmand Province" SNIPPET: "The Taliban militants, not the Afghan government, are collecting payments from consumers of electricity generated from the Kajaki hydroelectric power project in the country’s southern Helmand province, according to an Afghan news website." SNIPPET: "Haji Mullah Sharafuddin, the administrative head of the Kajaki district, the Taliban have been usurping the state’s right to receive income from the huge dam in the form of bills in the Kajaki, Sangin and Zamindar districts." SNIPPET: "The Kajaki dam generates 32 megawatts of electricity, supplied not only to...

FOB HASSANABAD, Afghanistan — The young Marines at this outpost could be on a camping trip to Hell. The living conditions in Helmand Province, one of the worst regions for trouble in Afghanistan, are such that most of friends and family in the United States wouldn't consider putting up with them for one day, much less the months these men will be assigned here. It's not even officially winter, yet temperatures routinely fall below freezing at night, and there's no heat in the tents. At night when standing guard in one of the security towers, the Marines put on layer...

The countdown to handing back Helmand province to Afghan control began yesterday when Gordon Brown announced a detailed exit timetable.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE HASSANABAD, Afghanistan -- Just getting the ingredients for Golf Company's one-day-early Thanksgiving dinner was a military operation. First, the Marines consulted their translators. Then the translators persuaded the Afghan border police to go to a market in what may be the most dangerous part of Helmand province. Buying the $68 worth of chicken and hot peppers and potatoes and rice and flat bread turned out to be the easy part, however. It was the cooking Wednesday night that nearly caused a squad of casualties. "Hey, you can't put out a grease fire like that!" someone yelled as...

A mile from South Station, an outpost of US marines in Helmand province, the tribal chief was openly hostile. “The Americans threaten our economy and take our land for bases. They promise much and deliver nothing,” he said. “People here regard the American troops as occupiers,” said Haji Khan, a leader of the Baluch tribe, who rules like a medieval baron. “Young people are turning against them and in time will fight them.” Inside South Station, soldiers are proud of the progress...Until they arrived, this remote part of Helmand had not had a government presence for years. But many are...

When Cpl. Darron Dale tucked a rosary inside his flak vest, he never imagined the close call that lay ahead. In a firefight with the Taliban in Afghanistan's Helmand province in late July, the M240B machine gunner on Dale's team was shot in the foot. "I'm hit! I'm hit!" the gunner called. Dale bounded forward to take over the gun, as other Marines pulled the wounded comrade to safety. But as Dale moved he was shot three times in his back armored plate. "It threw me to the ground," said Dale, of 3rd Platoon, Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine...

July is shaping up as the deadliest month of the Afghan war for U.S.-led international forces, with the number killed already matching the highest full-month toll of the nearly eight-year conflict, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press. As of Wednesday, at least 46 international troops, including 24 Americans, had been killed in Afghanistan this month, according to statements by the U.S. military and the NATO command. That matches the tolls for the two previous deadliest months — June and August of 2008. The rate of deaths in July — about three a day — is approaching some of...

The United States Marine Corps is taking it to the enemy in Afghanistan as we speak: Thousands of US Marines stormed into the Helmand river valley under cover of night yesterday, the opening phase of Barack Obama’s new high-risk strategy in Afghanistan. In Operation Khanjar, or Strike of the Sword, hailed by one commander as a “D-Day moment”, 4,000 Marines entered the lower Helmand river valley, hoping to do in hours what British troops have failed to do in three years. It is part of a massive surge ordered by Mr Obama, doubling the number of American troops and flooding...

LOWER HELMAND RIVER VALLEY, AFGHANISTAN (Reuters) – U.S. Marines launched a helicopter assault early on Thursday in the lower Helmand river valley in southern Afghanistan, spokesman Capt. Bill Pelletier said. A Reuters correspondent in the valley saw flares in the sky over the town of Nawa, south of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah. The valley of irrigated wheat and opium fields along the Helmand river is largely in the hands of Taliban fighters who have resisted British-led NATO forces for years. The United States has sent 8,500 Marines to Helmand province in the last two months, the largest wave of...

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan, June 5, 2009 – The last time the 25th Naval Construction Regiment had a mission even remotely approaching the scope of its task in Afghanistan, was during its last deployment, preparing for the D-Day invasion in Normandy, France. Navy Seabees position a truss for the new "Noah's Ark" headquarters and operations center under construction at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Aaron Rooks  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. So 65 years later, Navy Capt. Jeff Borowy recognizes the symbolism as he borrows words from Army Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to tell...

The high-profile arrest of a group of Pakistani militants in mid-April in the restive Afghan province of Helmand by the Afghan army and their subsequent handover to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for grilling exposed a jihadi network running to the heart of urban Pakistan. In the course of interrogation, the militants confessed to being recruited, trained and then launched into Helmand after spending some time in places such as the southern port city of Karachi and Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province. They also gave details of their Pakistani leaders and their activities, including how these leaders could...