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Catherine Moy
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Marines march on in the fight against Taliban terrorists. Meanwhile, “U.S. missiles struck a Pakistani Taliban militant training center and communications center, killing 17 people and wounding nearly 30, Pakistani intelligence officials said,” according to the Associated Press.

Here’s the report on the fight from the Associated Press:

NAWA, Afghanistan — U.S. Marines pushed deeper into Taliban areas of southern Afghanistan on Friday, seeking to cut insurgent supply lines and win over local elders on the second day of the biggest U.S. military operation here since the American-led invasion of 2001.

On the other side of the border, U.S. missiles struck a Pakistani Taliban militant training center and communications center, killing 17 people and wounding nearly 30, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

Both U.S. operations were aimed at what President Barack Obama considers as the biggest dangers in the region: a resurgent Taliban-led insurgency allied with al-Qaida that threatens both nuclear-armed Pakistan and the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan.

The 4,000-strong U.S. force met little resistance Friday as troops fanned out into villages in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province, although one Marine was killed and several others were wounded the day before, U.S. officials said.

Despite minimal contact, the Marines could see militants using flashlights late Thursday to signal one another about American troop movements.

Military spokesman Capt. Bill Pelletier said the goal of the Helmand operation was not simply to kill Taliban fighters but to win over the local population — a difficult task in a region where foreigners are viewed with suspicion.

Marines also hope to cut the routes used by militants to funnel weapons, ammunition and fighters from Pakistan to the Taliban, which mounted an increasingly violent insurgency since its hard-line Islamist government was toppled in 2001 by an international coalition.

The new U.S. operation will test the Obama administration’s new strategy of holding territory to let the Afghan government establish a presence in rural areas where Taliban influence is strong.

As Operation Khanjar, or “Strike of the Sword,” entered its second day, Marines took control of the district centers of Nawa and Garmser, and negotiated entry into Khan Neshin, the capital of Rig district, Pelletier said.

In Nawa, Marines met with about 20 Afghan men and boys, seeking to reassure them that the Americans wanted to protect them from the Taliban.

“Are you going to enter our houses?” asked Mohammad Nabi, 25, who was there with five of his younger brothers. “We are afraid that you will leave, and the Taliban will come back.”

They also complained that local police were thieves not to be trusted.

Marine officers promised not to enter homes and said they would remain in the area to keep out the Taliban.

One elder with a gray beard asked the Marines whether they would prevent residents from saying Muslim prayers. The troops assured him they would not.

In one village near Nawa, however, the atmosphere was tense.

“When we asked if they had a village elder or mullah for the American commander to talk to, the answer was no,” said Capt. Drew Schoenmaker, a Marine company commander. “It’s fear of reprisal. Fear and intimidation is one thing the enemy does very well.”

Taking territory from the Taliban has always proved easier than holding it. The challenge is especially great in Helmand because it is a center of Afghanistan’s thriving opium production, and drug profits feed both the insurgency and corrupt government officials.

On Wednesday, a British lieutenant colonel was killed in an explosion in Helmand. Lt. Col. Rupert Thorneloe, commander of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, was the highest-ranking British officer killed in Afghanistan.

A Canadian soldier, 30-year-old Cpl. Nicholas Bulger, was killed Friday in Kandahar province after his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device, the Canadian military said. Five other soldiers were hurt.

The missile attacks in Pakistan on Friday occurred about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) east of Helmand in the rugged South Waziristan region, according to two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

The area is a Taliban stronghold close to the Afghan border where Pakistani troops are gearing up for a major offensive.

Two missiles struck an abandoned seminary in the village of Mantoi used as a training base by militants from Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud’s group, the officials said. In the other strike, one missile hit an insurgent communications center in the nearby village of Kokat Khel, they said.

In total, 17 people were killed and 27 others were wounded, they said.

Posted By:
Catherine Moy
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Marines continue to take the fight to the Taliban in AFghanistan. They are going after their money crops: poppies. President Obama has increased the number of troops in Afghanistan and has said we will take casualties. Today a report claims the Taliban captured one American troop.

Here’s the story from Bloomberg.com:

July 2 (Bloomberg)—Thousands of U.S. Marines drove into a major Taliban opium-growing region, opening a phase of President Barack Obama’s strategy to secure Afghanistan.

As Marines advanced in the south, the U.S. military said one of its soldiers in eastern Afghanistan was missing. Agence France-Presse cited a Taliban spokesman as saying the guerrillas had captured an American soldier.

In the Helmand River Valley, almost 4,000 U.S. and 650 Afghan military personnel encountered little initial resistance as they entered villages using helicopters and armored vehicles, said Captain Bill Pelletier, a Marine spokesman in southern Afghanistan. He said no U.S. or Afghan casualties were reported by midday local time.

Poppy fields in Helmand province produced two-thirds of Afghanistan’s opium in 2008, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The opium trade is a major financial pillar for the Taliban, which with local warlords gathered as much as $470 million last year from commerce in the raw material for heroin, according to the UN office.

Two British troops were killed in an explosion during a parallel operation by their units near Lashkar Gah, the British Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Missing Before Offensive

A U.S. spokesman, Navy Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo, said in an e-mail that the missing American soldier “is not any way related” to the new combat operation. The soldier had been missing since June 30, he said.

U.S. forces are “deploying all available resources” to recover the soldier, said Captain John Stock, a spokesman for U.S. forces stationed at Bagram air base, north of Kabul, the capital.

The Marines’ offensive is the first of its size under the Obama administration’s shift of emphasis from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Where we go, we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold,” Brigadier General Larry Nicholson said in a statement. Nicholson commands a Marine Expeditionary Brigade that is part of the additional 17,000 U.S. troops Obama ordered to Afghanistan.

Iraq Withdrawal

The offensive comes two days after U.S. combat troops withdrew from Iraqi cities under a drawdown that will let the Pentagon shift attention to the Afghan war.

The U.S.-led force moved before dawn and “encountered only light contact” with guerrillas by midday, Pelletier said in a telephone interview from the Marine brigade’s headquarters near Lashkar Gah, the Helmand provincial capital.

The Marines said in their statement that they aim to take control of Nawa and Garmsir, two largely desert Helmand districts that are part of Afghanistan’s largest opium-growing region. International forces in the districts have been limited before to a few British bases.

After the U.S. toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001, Taliban guerrillas fled to Pakistan. No international forces occupied Helmand and adjacent southern provinces of Afghanistan, and Taliban guerrillas slowly regained control, forcing out the few Afghan government and police officials.

Beginning in 2006, British troops established several bases in Helmand, and were unable to oust the Taliban, which operates in part from sanctuaries in Pakistan, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of the area of the current offensive.

Pakistani Role

Pakistan’s army is “reorganizing our forces near Helmand to ensure that Taliban fleeing the U.S. operation cannot cross the border into Pakistan,” Major General Athar Abbas, Pakistan’s military spokesman, said by telephone from the capital, Islamabad.

U.S. General Stanley McChrystal assumed command of international forces in Afghanistan last month and has ordered new tactics that he says will better protect civilians from the Taliban.

McChrystal has said troops must focus on gaining the trust of the people to win the conflict and told the Wall Street Journal last month he will push soldiers farther out from their bases among Afghan civilians to try to bring stability.

“The measure of effectiveness will not be the number of enemy killed, it will be the number of Afghans shielded from violence,” the general said in a statement last month.

The Helmand offensive aims to “connect local civilians with their legitimate government” and bring secure conditions for national elections scheduled for August, the Marines said in their statement.

Troops will “build bases to provide security for the local people,” Helmand Governor Gulab Mangal said in the statement.

‘Classic Counterinsurgency’

The U.S. has about 54,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, with 36,000 in NATO’s International Security Assistance Force and 18,000 in a separate counterterrorism operation. The number of U.S. soldiers in the country is set to rise to 68,000 this year under Obama’s policy.

The reinforcements should enable the U.S. to follow a “classic counterinsurgency strategy of clear, hold and build,” something troops have failed to do since toppling the Taliban regime, said Anthony Bubalo, director of the West Asia Program at Australia’s Lowy Institute for International Policy.

“If you cannot hold territory and provide security, you can’t undertake the kind of development work you need to do to win hearts and minds and strengthen the authority of the government in Kabul,” he said.

Posted By:
Catherine Moy
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About 4,000 Marines are taking on Taliban in Afghanistan. Soldiers will soon join the fight. Hoo-ah!!

Here’s the story from the Washington Post:

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan, July 2—Thousands of U.S. Marines descended upon the volatile Helmand River valley in helicopters and armored convoys early Thursday, mounting an operation that represents the first large-scale test of the U.S. military’s new counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

The operation will involve about 4,000 troops from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, which was dispatched to Afghanistan this year by President Obama to combat a growing Taliban insurgency in Helmand and other southern provinces. The Marines, along with an Army brigade that is scheduled to arrive later this summer, plan to push into pockets of the country where NATO forces have not had a presence. In many of those areas, the Taliban has evicted local police and government officials and taken power.

Once Marine units arrive in their designated towns and villages, they have been instructed to build and live in small outposts among the local population. The brigade’s commander, Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, said his Marines will focus their efforts on protecting civilians from the Taliban and on restoring Afghan government services, instead of mounting a series of hunt-and-kill missions against the insurgents.

“We’re doing this very differently,” Nicholson said to his senior officers a few hours before the mission began. “We’re going to be with the people. We’re not going to drive to work. We’re going to walk to work.”

Similar approaches have been tried in the eastern part of the country, but none has had the scope of the mission in Helmand, a vast province that is largely an arid moonscape save for a band of fertile land that lines the Helmand River. Poppies grown in that territory produce half the world’s supply of opium and provide the Taliban with a valuable source of income.

The operation launched early Thursday represents a shift in strategy after years of thwarted U.S.-led efforts to destroy Taliban sanctuaries in Afghanistan and extend the authority of the Afghan government into the nation’s southern and eastern regions. More than seven years after the fall of the Taliban government, the radical Islamist militia remains a potent force across broad swaths of the country. The Obama administration has made turning the war around a top priority, and the Helmand operation, if it succeeds, is seen as a potentially critical first step.

Traveling though swirling dust clouds under the light of a half-moon, the first Marine units departed from this remote desert base shortly after midnight on dual-rotor CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters backed by AH-64 Apache gunships and NATO fighter jets. Additional forces were slated to pour into the valley during the pre-dawn hours on more helicopters and in heavy transport vehicles designed to withstand the makeshift but lethal bombs that Taliban fighters have planted along the roads.

It was not immediately clear whether the initial Marine units faced resistance as they converged on their destinations. Marine commanders said before the start of the operation that they expected only minimal Taliban opposition at the outset but that assaults on the forces likely would increase once they moved into towns and began patrols. Field commanders have been told to prepare for suicide attacks, ambushes and roadside bombings.

Officers here said the mission, which required months of planning, is the Marines’ largest operation since the 2004 invasion of Fallujah, in Iraq. In the minutes after midnight, well-armed Marines trudged across the tarmac at this sprawling outpost to board the Chinooks, which lumbered aloft with a burst of searing dust. A few hours later, another contingent of Marines was scheduled to board a row of CH-53 Super Stallion helicopters packed onto a relatively small landing pad at a staging base in the desert south of here. As the choppers clattered through the night sky, dozens of armored vehicles rolled toward towns along the river valley.

The U.S. strategy here is predicated on the belief that a majority of people in Helmand do not favor the Taliban, which enforces a strict brand of Islam that includes an eye-for-an-eye justice and strict limits on personal behavior. Instead, U.S. officials believe, residents would rather have the Afghan government in control, but they have been cowed into supporting the Taliban because there was nobody to protect them.

In areas south of the provincial capital, local leaders, and even members of the police force, have fled. An initial priority for the Marines will be to bring back Afghan government officials and reinvigorate the local police forces. Marine commanders also plan to help district governors hold shuras—meetings of elders in the community—in the next week.

“Our focus is not the Taliban,” Nicholson told his officers. “Our focus must be on getting this government back up on its feet.”

But Nicholson and his top commanders recognize that making that happen involves tackling numerous challenges, starting with a lack of trust among the local population. That mistrust stems from concern over civilian casualties resulting from U.S. military operations as well as from a fear that the troops will not stay long enough to counter the Taliban. The British army, which had been responsible for all of Helmand since 2005 under NATO’s Afghan stabilization effort, lacked the resources to maintain a permanent presence in most parts of the province.

“A key to establishing security is getting the local population to understand that we’re going to be staying here to help them—that we’re not driving in and driving out,” said Col. Eric Mellenger, the brigade’s operations officer.

With the arrival of the Marines, British forces have redeployed around the capital of Helmand, Lashkar Gah, where they are conducting a large anti-Taliban operation designed to complement the Marine mission. Two British soldiers were reported killed in fighting in the province Wednesday.

The Marines have also been vexed by a lack of Afghan security forces and a near-total absence of additional U.S. civilian reconstruction personnel. Nicholson had hoped that his brigade, which has about 11,000 Marines and sailors, would be able to conduct operations with a similar number of Afghan army soldiers. But thus far, the Marines have been allotted only about 500 Afghan soldiers, which he deems “a critical vulnerability.”

“They see things intuitively that we don’t see,” he said. “It’s their country and they know it better than we do.”

Despite commitments from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development that they would send additional personnel to help the new forces in southern Afghanistan with reconstruction and governance development, State has added only two officers in Helmand since the Marines arrived. State has promised to have a dozen more diplomats and reconstruction experts working with the Marines, but only by the end of the summer.

To compensate in the interim, the Marines are deploying what officers here say is the largest-ever military civilian-affairs contingent attached to a combat brigade—about 50 Marines, mostly reservists, with experience in local government, business management and law enforcement. Instead of flooding the area of operations with cash, as some units did in Iraq, the Marine civil affairs commander, Lt. Col. Curtis Lee, said he intends to focus his resources on improving local government.

Once basic governance structures are restored, civilian reconstruction personnel plan to focus on economic development programs, including programs to help Afghans grow legal crops in the area. Senior Obama administration officials say creating jobs and improving the livelihoods of rural Afghans is the key to defeating the Taliban, which has been able to recruit fighters for as little as $5 a day in Helmand.

In meetings with his commanders at forward operating bases over the past three days, Nicholson acknowledged that focusing on governance and population security does not come as naturally to Marines as conducting offensive operations, but he told them it is essential that they focus on “reining in the pit bulls.”

“We’re not going to measure your success by the number of times your ammunition is resupplied. . . . Our success in this environment will be very much predicated on restraint,” he told a group of officers from the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines on Sunday. “You’re going to drink lots of tea. You’re going to eat lots of goat. Get to know the people. That’s the reason why we’re here.”

Posted By:
Catherine Moy
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Iraqis celebrated with fireworks as American troops marched away from Iraq’s cities, handing control of the country back to Iraqis. That means Iraqis will have to protect themselves from the terrorists who will no doubt work to destroy the country. Violence has increased already, but that was expected. What a gift the United States gave to the people of Iraq: chance for freedom and self-government and escape from a bloody dictator.

ABC Reports:

Fireworks lit up the night sky over Baghdad tonight as Iraqis celebrated the withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from the country’s cities, the first milestone in a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that calls for the departure of all U.S. troops by the end of 2011.

After giving power to Iraqis, Lt. Col. Tim Karcher loses legs in explosion.Under the agreement, Iraqi forces were to assume formal control of security in Baghdad and Iraq’s major cities as U.S. combat troops withdrew to areas outside the cities by June 30.

The date has long been anticipated by Iraqis and Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki declared Tuesday a public holiday: National Sovereignty Day.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, told “Fox News Sunday” this weekend that the United States had already completed the withdrawal before the deadline.

America keeps her word. But patriots always knew this.

“We have already moved out of the cities,” Odierno said. “We’ve been slowly doing it over the last eight months. And the final units have moved out of the cities over the last several weeks.

“It is time for them to take responsibility inside the cities,” Odierno continued. “It’s time for this partnership to have an Iraqi lead, it’s time for this partnership to have the Iraqis out in front.”

Under the agreement, some U.S. troops will remain in Iraq’s cities continuing to serve on as embedded trainers with Iraqi army and police units, and additional forces will continue to provide logistical assistance to Iraq’s troops in the cities.

However, the bulk of U.S. troops will continue to operate in Iraq’s rural areas and the belts surrounding urban areas in joint patrols with Iraqi security forces, much as they have since the security framework was put in place early this year.

Posted By:
Catherine Moy
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The United States test fired an intercontinental ballistic missile from California today.

The AP Reports:

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) - The Air Force has successfully launched an unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile from the California coast to an area in the Pacific Ocean some 4,200 miles away.

Lt. Raymond Geoffroy says the ICBM was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 3:01 a.m. Monday and carried three unarmed re-entry vehicles to their targets near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

The missile, configured with a National Nuclear Security Administration Test Assembly, was launched under the direction of the 576th Flight Test Squadron.

The Air Force says the launch was an operational test to check the weapon system’s reliability and accuracy, and the data will be used by United States Strategic Command planners and Department of Energy laboratories.