Word: talibans
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...Marines and 650 Afghan soldiers have been fighting their way into the southern reaches of Afghanistan's Helmand River valley, hoping to clear out insurgents there. But other than in one limited area of fierce resistance, the fighting has generally been restricted to small-scale skirmishes in which few Taliban have been killed because most of the insurgents appear to have slipped away - as guerrillas tend to do when confronted by overwhelming firepower. More important to U.S. goals, however, is that no civilians have been hurt, since the purpose of the operation is to secure the local population against...
...only one Marine has been killed and several have been wounded. (In eastern Afghanistan, a U.S. soldier appears to have been captured by the Taliban in an event unrelated to the Helmand operation.) Casualty figures will probably rise, however, because the Taliban, having declined to go toe-to-toe with the Marines and instead having melted into the civilian population, will probably resort to asymmetrical warfare tactics like using improvised explosive devices (IEDs). On Saturday, an IED strike killed two U.S. troops in eastern Afghanistan, while another on Thursday killed two British troops elsewhere in Helmand. Stationing Marines among...
Aware of the danger, McChrystal has made the protection of civilians the central tenet of his new approach to fighting the Taliban, even going so far as to limit the use of aerial bombardment to the most extreme circumstances - a turnabout for U.S. ground forces that have grown dependent on air support. McChrystal has also declared - in a soon-to-be-released tactical directive - that soldiers should hold their fire if there is even the slightest risk of a civilian presence in the target zone. "Suppose the insurgent occupies an enemy home or village and engages you from there with...
...Marines, however, are a temporary solution. They will remain in Helmand at least through the Afghan presidential elections slated for Aug. 20, when they will assist the Afghan security forces to secure polling places in anticipation of Taliban attacks. What happens beyond that, however, remains a question. "The military can help set the conditions for success, but it is not sufficient for success," U.S. ambassador and former Combined Forces Command Afghanistan (CFC-A) commander Karl Eikenberry told TIME. "The military can help deliver security, but the military in and of itself cannot deliver a lasting peace, cannot deliver an accountable...
...Within days of her burial, the government of then-President Pervez Musharraf had fingered Baitullah Mehsud, the notorious Taliban commander. It enlisted the police expertise of London's Scotland Yard to establish the exact circumstance of Bhutto's death (there was much uncertainty over whether she died by gunshot or by hitting the sunroof of the vehicle, for instance.) Pakistan's Interior Ministry, meanwhile, furnished telephone intercepts that pointed to Mehsud's involvement. The CIA agreed that the Taliban commander was the principal suspect. Although he has since denied involvement in the killing, Mehsud was reported to have issued threats...