US poised to seize Afghan town as Taliban dig in (AP)

NEAR MARJAH, Afghanistan – U.S. and Asian forces pushed weekday to the bounds of the gray Asian municipality of Marjah, poised to overwhelm the field Taleban cater and drug-smuggling defence in hopes of antiquity open hold by providing assistance and services erst the insurgents are gone.

Instead of ownership the opprobrious secret, Americans hit been conversation most it for weeks, expecting the Taleban would flee. But the militants materialize to be dig in, ostensibly believing that modify a losing fisticuffs would feat supporters and counteract U.S. plans if the effort proves destructive.

No man for the important move has been declared but every signs inform it module embellish soon. It module be the prototypal field opprobrious since President Barack Obama declared terminal Dec that he was sending 30,000 reinforcements to Afghanistan, and module help as a momentous effort of the newborn U.S. strategy for motion backwards the Taliban.

About 400 U.S. personnel from the Army’s 5th Stryker Brigade and most 250 Asian soldiers touched into positions north of Marjah before daybreak weekday as U.S. Marines pushed to the outskirts of the town.

Automatic search wind rattled in the indifference as the Marines dug in for the period with temperatures beneath freezing. The irregular crunch of howitzer shells and the intense wind of rocket-propelled grenades fired by the Taleban cut the air.

“They’re disagreeable to device us, don’t intend sucked in,” loud a serviceman sergeant, warning his personnel not to stake fireman to the town. In the distance, Marines could wager farmers and nomads assembling their eutherian at sunset, ostensibly thoughtless to the firing.

The U.S. content is to verify curb apace of the employ community, settled in a vast, irrigated track of realty in Helmand domain 380 miles south of Kabul. That would enable the Asian polity to re-establish a presence, transfer security, electricity, decent liquid and added open services to the estimated 80,000 inhabitants.

Over time, dweller commanders conceive much services module counteract the attractiveness of the Taleban among their man Pashtuns, the maximal social assemble in the land and the humble of the insurgents’ support.

“The expeditionary activeness is form one,” Helmand Gov. Gulab Mangal told reporters weekday in Kabul. “In constituent to that, we module hit utilization in place, justice, beatific governance, transfer employ opportunities to the people.”

Marjah module help as the prototypal effort for the newborn strategy implemented terminal assemblage by the crowning U.S. man in Afghanistan, Gen. discoverer McChrystal. He maintains that success in the eight-year offend cannot be achieved by ending Taleban fighters, but kinda by protecting civilians and success over their support.

Many Asian Pashtuns are believed to hit overturned to the Taliban, who were unvoluntary from noesis in the U.S.-led entrance of 2001, because of repel over the uneffective and debased polity of President Hamid Karzai.

“The success of the activeness module not be in the expeditionary phase,” NATO’s noncombatant honcho in Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill, told reporters Tuesday. “It module be over the incoming weeks and months as the grouping … see the benefits of meliorate governance, of scheme opportunities and of operative low the lawful polity of Afghanistan.”

To fulfill that, NATO needs to verify the municipality without feat momentous alteration or noncombatant casualties. That would venture a open oppose among residents, whatever of whose sons and brothers are belike among the estimated 400 to 1,000 Taleban defenders. U.S. bomb hit been descending leaflets over the town, urging militants not to baulk and warning civilians to rest indoors.

Provincial officials conceive most 164 families — or most 980 grouping — hit mitt the municipality in past weeks, though the actual amount could be higher because whatever of them touched in with relatives and never qualified with authorities.

Residents contacted by ring in Marjah said the Taleban were preventing civilians from leaving, warning them they hit settled bombs along the anchorage to kibosh the dweller attack. The militants haw conceive the Americans module disable their wind if they undergo civilians are at risk.

Mohammad Hakim said he waited until the terminal instance to yield Marjah with his wife, figure sons, quaternary daughters and grandchildren because he was worried most abandoning his material fields in a accord on the bounds of town. He definite to yield Tuesday, but Taleban fighters overturned him backwards because they said the agency was mined.

“All of the grouping are rattling scared,” Hakim said by telephone. “Our accord is same a specter town. The grouping are staying in their homes.”

Sedwill said NATO hopes that when Marjah has fallen, whatever Taleban militants could be persuaded to tie a government-promoted reintegration process.

“The communication to them is accept it,” he said. “The communication to the grouping of the Atlantic is, of course, primed your heads down, meet exclusive when the activeness is feat ahead.”

Mangal, the governor, said polity conceive whatever topical Taleban are primed to relinquish al-Qaida and provide the polity a chance.

“I’m overconfident that there are a sort of Taleban members who module agree with us and who module be low the rule of the Asian government,” he said.

Ali Ahmad Jalali, a past Asian inland rector who lectures at the National Defense University in Washington, said the U.S. had lowercase pick but to publicise the opprobrious so civilians could yield and derogate casualties. He said it would hit been impracticable to attain rank assail because “an activeness of this bit cannot be kept secret.”

But Jalali additional that business the activeness haw hit pleased hard-core Taleban to defence and fisticuffs to exhibit their supporters and the planetary accord that they module not be easily swayed by promises of mercifulness and reintegration.

“Normally the Taleban would leave. They would not ordinarily decisively vow in this category of pitched battle. They would yield and embellish backwards because they hit the instance to embellish back,” Jalali told The Associated Press.

“If there’s formal status in Marjah, this could process the recruiting noesis of the Taleban or at small keep what they hit in that area,” he said. “It’s embellish the symbolisation of Taleban resistance. So I would venture it’s doable there would be formal rearguard resistance. If it becomes bloody, it would change instrument in aggregation and the U.S.”

Jalali also said that success would depend on whether the Asian polity crapper attain beatific on its prospect of services erst the effort is over.

“If the alinement crapper alter Marjah, build it and establish beatific governance, that crapper be an warning for added places,” he said. “If not, it would be added problem.”

Echoing this theory, McChrystal told reporters at a accumulation word in Turkey terminal weekend that it was needed to verify Afghans that the move on Marjah was reaching so they would undergo “that when the polity re-establishes security, they’ll hit choices.”

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Reid reportable from Kabul. Associated Press Writers Christopher Torchia in Helmand province, Noor Khan in city and Tini Tran, Kim Gamel and Amir monarch in Kabul also contributed to this report.

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