Word: marjah
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...secret. If the Taliban chose to melt away rather than resist, McChrystal reasoned, it would give him more time to set up a robust administration - a good advertisement for those in other towns where NATO troops would soon have to fight. U.S. commanders even ordered an opinion poll of Marjah residents: they wanted to know how they felt about the U.S. and the Taliban and to gauge what they might want from his government in a box. (See pictures of the Taliban moving into the Buner District...
...total in the Afghan war pushed past 1,000. Estimates of Taliban casualties were around 120. Civilian casualties were low for such an intense offensive: 28 were killed in the fighting, though as the operation progressed, there was some bad news when a pair of air strikes, one near Marjah, killed 39 civilians...
There was skepticism in Marjah too. Abdul Hadi, a student, fled the fighting along with his family on Feb. 18; now living in Lashkar Gah, he is in no hurry to return. He worries that many Taliban are just waiting for the NATO forces to move on to their next target. "I know the Taliban will come back," he says. Mohammad Hosain, a teacher from Marjah, wonders if they even left. "The Taliban does not have a uniform, so if they leave their weapons at home, they can easily move around," he says. "There is no [sign] on their face...
Even so, Pakistani cooperation in the arrest of Baradar, on the eve of the Marjah assault, was an unexpected bonus for McChrystal. Why did Pakistan roll up Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar's deputy? Islamabad has previously arrested senior figures in the Afghan Taliban, but they've typically been released quickly, without U.S. officials being given access to them. But the Pakistanis made an exception with Baradar, who may have a treasure trove of information on the Taliban. Possibly the Pakistanis were under pressure to reciprocate for the U.S. strikes on the Mehsuds. Or perhaps Baradar had fallen out with...
People like Hadi and Hosain came by their skepticism the hard way: they have seen foreign forces defeat the Taliban in Helmand, then pull out, then repeat the cycle. The town of Musa Qala, north of Marjah, has twice been taken by NATO arms: by British and Danish forces in 2006 and by the U.S. in 2007. On both occasions, a new local government was created, and each time, the Taliban returned to murder those it deemed collaborators...