Word: marja
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...what is being billed as the largest military operation in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, 20,000 coalition troops are set to invade Marja, a Taliban stronghold in the country's southern Helmand province. The offensive will target Taliban fighters who for years have holed up with the area's narcotics traffickers, planning and carrying out suicide and roadside bomb attacks. U.S. officials took the unusual step of announcing the mission ahead of time, saying the element of surprise was not as important as reassuring citizens that the Afghan government will be there for them once...
...weeks before Saturday's assault, NATO aircraft dropped thousands of leaflets urging civilians to leave Marja until the fighting was over and the town had been re-captured. Over 100,000 Pashtuns live around Marja, but only several thousand fled. Fleeing families told journalists on the road that the Taliban had ordered Marja's people to stay behind, giving them a human shield to hide behind as the NATO forces closed in. Others said their relatives could not leave because the roads outside their homes were too heavily mined...
With such a huge juggernaut, it may be easy for coalition forces to conquer Marja, but winning over its inhabitants may be another matter. The areas's residents are Pashtuns, who share tribal links with the Taliban. Anywhere between 400 to 1,000 Taliban fighters are said to be holed up in Marja's dusty maze of lanes and high, mud-walled homes. Now the coalition forces face the difficult task of threading through minefields, and a dense warren of houses, to hunt down the Taliban fighters...
...past six months, since it succeeds in clearing out the Taliban without incurring the heavy loss of civilians. It also allows NATO to implant Afghan troops and civic officials to restore some semblance of Kabul's control over areas previously under the sway of Taliban justice and administration. After Marja is cleared of Taliban, more than 1,900 Afghan police will support a team of administrators selected by the Kabul government to run the town...
...Taliban, retreating from Marja gives them a chance to strike again, avoiding face-to-face combat with a larger and mightier enemy. Though some Marja refugees said that many Afghan Taliban may have fled, they also said a large contingent of more zealous Pakistani fighters stayed behind, bent on martyrdom. That is possible; after decades of war, Afghans have developed a keen instinct about when to fight, and when to slip away...