Free Republic

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the United States Central Command, said Sunday that the battle now being fought in the Taliban stronghold of Marja was the “initial salvo” in a military campaign that could last 12 to 18 months. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” news program, the general, who oversees the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, sought to put the Marja battle “into context” by explaining its part in the overall effort by American, Afghan and other forces to defeat the Taliban. He said that the coalition had spent recent months mapping strategy, gathering resources...

The centre of Marjah looked battered and abandoned yesterday as soldiers raised a makeshift Afghan flag after days of intense fighting between the Taleban and US Marines. The symbolic gesture was designed to demonstrate Afghan government control but commanders acknowleged that the fighting was far from over and the local population were nowhere to be seen. Troops in the town centre said that the insurgents had retreated to the western edge of their Helmand stronghold, where US and Afghan troops are still waiting to dislodge them. In Loy Chari, which means main square, in central Marjah, shops were reduced to...

An Afghan soldier fires a rocket-propelled grenade at Taliban fighers firing on their position at the “Five Points” intersection in Marja in Afghanistan's Helmand province, Feb. 9, 2010. Afghan soldiers joined US Marines assigned to Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, as they conducted an assault earlier that morning to seize the key intersection linking the northern area of the insurgent stronghold of Marja with the rest of Helmand province. US Marine Corps photo by Sergeant Brian A. Tuthill. Coalition and Afghan forces have launched the long-awaited assault on the Taliban stronghold of Marja in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province....