MARJAH, Afghanistan -- Thousands of U.S. Marines and Afghan soldiers stormed the Taliban stronghold of Marjah by air and ground Saturday, meeting only scattered resistance but facing a daunting thicket of bombs and booby traps that slowed the allied advance through the town.

The massive offensive was aimed at establishing Afghan government authority over the biggest southern town under militant control and breaking the Taliban grip over a wide area of their southern heartland.

Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, NATO commander of forces in southern Afghanistan, said Afghan and coalition troops, aided by 60 helicopters, made a "successful insertion" into Marjah in southern Helmand province. He said the operation was going "without a hitch."

Thousands of British, U.S. and Canadian troops also swept into Taliban areas to the north of Marjah, seeking to clear a wide swath of villages that had been under Taliban control for several years.

No coalition casualties had been reported more than 12 hours after the initial airborne assault, but NATO said three U.S. soldiers were killed Saturday in a bombing elsewhere in southern Afghanistan.

At least 20 insurgents were reported killed in the Helmand operation, said Gen. Sher Mohammad Zazai, the commander of Afghan forces in the region. Troops have recovered Kalashnikov rifles, heavy machine guns and grenades from 11 insurgents captured so far.

The few civilians who ventured out to talk to the Marines said teams of Taliban fighters were falling back deeper into the town, perhaps to try to regroup and mount harassment attacks to prevent the government from rushing in aid and public services - a key step in the operation.

The long-awaited assault on Marjah is the biggest offensive since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and is a major test of a new NATO strategy focused on protecting civilians. The attack is also the first major combat operation since President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 U.S. reinforcements here in December to try to turn the tide of the war.

President Hamid Karzai called on Afghan and international troops "to exercise absolute caution to avoid harming civilians," including avoiding airstrikes in areas where civilians are at risk. In a statement, he also called on insurgent fighters to renounce violence and reintegrate into civilian life.

A Taliban spokesman insisted the insurgents were still resisting the allied assault and that the town remained under their control. "The Taliban are there and they are fighting. All of
Marjah is still under Taliban control," Qari Yousef Ahmadi told The Associated Press by phone. He declined to say how many Taliban fighters remained in the town but dismissed NATO accounts as "propaganda.

KABUL, Afghanistan — American, Afghan and British troops seized crucial positions across the Taliban stronghold of Marja on Saturday, encountering intense but sporadic fighting as they began the treacherous ordeal of house-to-house searches.

More than 6,000 American, Afghan and British troops came in fast early on Saturday, overwhelming most immediate resistance. But as the troops began to fan out on searches, fighting with Taliban insurgents grew in frequency and intensity across a wide area.

The pattern suggested that the hardest fighting lay in the days to come.

One American and one British Marine were reported killed by small-arms fire, but none from the Afghan Army, whose soldiers make up the majority of those in the fight.

Three American soldiers were killed and seven wounded when they were attacked by a suicide bomber on a motorcycle during a foot patrol in neighboring Kandahar Province. A second British soldier was killed by a homemade bomb in southern Afghanistan in a blast unrelated to the operation in Marja.

NATO officials said that no civilian casualties had been reported. In the chaos, the claim was impossible to verify.

American commanders said the troops had achieved every first-day objective. That included advancing into the city itself and seizing intersections, government buildings and one of the city’s main bazaars in the center of town.

Some Marines held meetings with local Afghans almost immediately to reassure them and to ask for help in finding Taliban and hidden bombs.

Mohammed Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman for Helmand Province’s governor, said Afghan and NATO forces had set up 11 outposts across Marja and two in the neighboring town of Nad Ali. “We now occupy all the strategic points in the area,” he said.

From those posts, Marines and soldiers began to go on patrols, searching door to door for weapons and fighters. This phase of the operation, considered the most dangerous, is expected to last at least five days. The biggest concern is bombs and booby-traps, of which there are believed to be hundreds, in roads, houses and footpaths.

The invasion of Marja is the largest military operation of its kind here since the American-backed war began eight years ago. The area, about 80 square miles of farmland, villages and irrigation canals, is believed to be the largest Taliban sanctuary inside Afghanistan. Afghan and American commanders believe there are also a number of opium factories that the insurgents control to finance their war.

On the first full day of operations, much of the expected resistance failed to materialize. Certainly there was none of the eyeball-to-eyeball fighting that typified the battle for Falluja in Iraq in 2004, to which the invasion of Marja had been compared.

“Actually, the resistance is not there,” Abdul Rahim Wardak, the Afghan defense minister, said in a news conference in Kabul. “Based on our intelligence reports, some of the Taliban have left the area. But we still expected there to be several hundred. Just yesterday, we received reports that reinforcements had arrived from neighboring provinces.”

Dozens if not hundreds of insurgents probably fled Marja in the days leading up to the assault, according to military officers and local residents. American and Afghan commanders hoped to achieve just that result when they took the unusual step of broadcasting their intention to invade Marja days ahead of time.

But it seems likely that many Taliban were still in Marja, lying in wait. One resident interviewed by telephone said that many insurgents had stayed behind.

“I don’t have any information on the Taliban, neither where they are nor where they have gone,” said Palawan, a farmer in Marja who goes by one name. “I don’t think they have gone anywhere, because Marja has been surrounded by Afghan and foreign forces on every side.”

What has been advertised as the most important, and novel, aspect of the Marja operation got under way on Saturday. After clearing Marja, American and Afghan officials say, they intend to import an entire Afghan civil administration, along with nearly 2,000 Afghan police officers, to help keep the Taliban from coming back in. The first of those, about 1,000 Afghan paramilitary police, were scheduled to begin arriving within 24 hours.

In some parts of the town, American and Afghan troops began holding meetings with residents, trying to win the Afghans’ support. Previous operations to clear the Taliban from towns and cities have failed across Afghanistan, in large part because the Americans and Afghans have rarely left behind competent Afghan government or security forces to hold the places. That has meant that the Taliban have not stayed away for long. This time, in Marja, things are supposed to be different.

“Our main goal in this joint operation is not to kill insurgents,” Mr. Wardak said. “In fact, our primary goal is to expand the government’s influence and protect the civilian population.”

Afghans in Marja itself stayed mostly indoors in the first hours of the invasion. “Nobody can go out of his house,” said Mr. Palawan, the local farmer. “The government and the Taliban have told us to stay in our house. But there has been fighting in the area all morning.”

A local Taliban commander named Hashemi, also reached by telephone, said his men had fought through much of day, shooting at least six foreign soldiers. That claim could not be verified. Mr. Hashemi said that six of his own men had been killed. “The Taliban are still resisting,” Mr. Hashemi said. “We are strong and we won’t give up. We will fight to death.”

American soldiers said Saturday that firefights with the Taliban began sporadically but grew more frequent and more intense as the day went on. Late in the afternoon, insurgents and a company of Marines fought a two-hour gun battle at Marja’s northern edge. It ended when the Marines dropped a 500-pound bomb on the Taliban’s position.

After the bomb, the Marines believed that several wounded and dead Taliban fighters lay in the field in front of them. But each time they ventured into the field, Taliban fighters opened fire. After a time, the Marines decided to leave the Taliban casualties in the field, said Capt. Joshua P. Biggers, a Marine company commander.

“Every time they try to go out,” he said of his men, “they get hammered.”

C. J. Chivers contributed reporting from Marja, and an Afghan employee of The New York Times from Helmand Province.

Nato forces in Afghanistan have hailed as a success the first phase of a major operation to oust the Taliban from two key districts of Helmand in the south.

More than 15,000 US, UK and Afghan troops swept into Marjah and Nad Ali before dawn. UK and US officials said key day one objectives had been met.

Two Nato deaths, including one Briton, have been confirmed. Afghan forces said 20 militants had been killed.

Operation Moshtarak is the biggest attack since the Taliban fell in 2001.

'Minimal interference'

Moshtarak - which means "together" in the local Dari language - is being led by 4,000 US Marines, supported by 4,000 British troops, a large Afghan force and Canadians, Danes and Estonians.

ANALYSIS
Frank Gardner, BBC News, Kandahar

It was the largest helicopter-borne assault ever undertaken in Afghanistan and it was almost unopposed. Sixty coalition helicopters took off before dawn to insert thousands of US, British and Afghan troops. But the real challenge is following this military manoeuvre with lasting security for the residents of central Helmand.

The Taliban and other insurgents have kept a relatively low profile during this offensive but intelligence officers here at operation headquarters in Kandahar believe they are likely to try to exploit any opportunity to reverse the gains made by Nato and the Afghan government forces.

This operation is the first major test for President Obama's new strategy in Afghanistan. Its success or failure depends on whether it can be swiftly followed by security and good governance.

The offensive began with waves of helicopters ferrying US Marines into Marjah.

British troops then flew into Nad Ali district, to the north, followed by tanks and combat units.

More than 1,000 British troops took part in trying to secure the Chah-e Anjir Triangle north-east of Marjah.

Maj-Gen Gordon Messenger told a briefing in London there had been "sporadic fighting" and the Taliban were unable to "put up a coherent response".

He said: "The key objectives have been secured and have been done so with minimal interference."

However, one British soldier, from the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, was killed by an explosion in Nad Ali.

Gen Messenger said that "low numbers" of insurgents had been killed during the attack.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown praised the UK forces for their action.

He said: "This day will be long remembered as the day when a new phase of the campaign to win the support of the people of Afghanistan was initiated. And I'm very proud of the exceptional role that British forces have played in that."

A senior US official told the BBC in Washington that "it seems that all of our objectives for day one have been met" adding that "this seems to have been achieved with minimum loss of life and minimum violence".

MARJAH: 'TALIBAN STRONGHOLD'

• Town and district about 40km (25 miles) south-west of Lashkar Gah
• Lies in Helmand's 'Green Zone' - an irrigated area of lush vegetation and farmland
• Last remaining major Taliban stronghold in southern Helmand
• Area considered a centre for assembling roadside bombs
• Key supply centre for opium poppies - lucrative revenue source for Taliban
• Estimates of Taliban numbers range up to 1,000
• Population of Marjah town put at 80,000 while the whole of Marjah district is thought to have 125,000

But the official added: "We still believe there to be armed insurgents in the area and in waiting."

Earlier, Lt Col Brian Christmas told the Associated Press there had been sustained gun battles in four parts of Marjah.

AP reported Marjah residents as saying Taliban insurgents had fallen back into the centre of the town.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, spoke to a number of news agencies, saying insurgents were still resisting in Marjah and were engaged in hit-and-run tactics.

Another Taliban spokesman, Mullah Mohammed, had earlier told ABC News that his men were pulling back to spare any civilian casualties.

Mohammad Zazai, commander of Afghan troops in the operation, said that 20 militants had been killed and 11 detained.

It was estimated there were between 400 and 1,000 militants based in the region before Operation Moshtarak was launched.

Nato's aim is to secure Marjah - a town of 80,000 - and surrounding areas as soon as possible and then bring in aid and public services.

'Civilian support'

In Kabul, Nato civilian representative Mark Sedwill said the news of the Nato-led attack "appeared to be positive" although he stressed it was still early.

He said it was vital to bring in "civilian support from the Afghan government" as soon as possible.

HAVE YOUR SAY We have little choice. We pull out, Pakistan falls. This is the era of the new domino theory. David Cheshire, Dorset, UK

Afghan Defence Minister Gen Rahim Wardak also said it was important to bring in local security forces quickly.

He said there had been "sporadic resistance" and there was a threat from booby-traps left by the Taliban.

"The area has been heavily mined, that's why we are moving so slowly," he said in Kabul.

One canal bridge into Marjah was particularly heavily mined.

US Marine ordnance units advanced through the town exploding bombs when located.

One other Nato fatality - from small-arms fire - in Operation Moshtarak was confirmed on Saturday, although no other details were given.

Three US soldiers were also killed by an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan, Nato said, although was unclear if it was related to Moshtarak.

Marjah has also long been regarded as a linchpin of the lucrative network for smuggling opium - the raw ingredient used to make heroin - harvested from Helmand's poppy fields.

Nato had distributed leaflets in the area warning of the planned offensive in a bid to limit civilian casualties.

The operation is part of an effort to secure a 320-km (200-mile) horseshoe-shaped string of towns that runs along the Helmand River, through Kandahar and on to the Pakistani border.

MARJA, AFGHANISTAN -- U.S. Marines and Afghan soldiers encountered pockets of stiff resistance and extensive minefields as they sought to press into this Taliban sanctuary in southern Afghanistan on Saturday.

Numerous gunfights with insurgents and painstaking efforts to clear roads of makeshift bombs slowed the advance of many coalition units and delayed them from reaching some of their key destinations in this farming area of 80,000 people. The operation was further complicated by the challenge of fording irrigation canals that ring the area and traversing a landscape covered in knee-deep mud.

"We've had some pretty tough fights," said Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade. "It's been a tough slog for some of our companies."

The effort to flush the Taliban out of Marja, which involves 5,000 Marines and Afghan security forces, is part of the largest coalition operation since the start of the Afghan war to combat the insurgency and exert government over lawless areas of the country. British and Afghan troops are conducting a related military operation in an adjacent Taliban stronghold 30 miles to the northeast.

One Marine from the brigade was killed Saturday and several suffered injuries, most of them minor. It was not clear how many insurgents were killed by Marine ground units and by a series of Hellfire missile strikes from unmanned Predator and Reaper drones flying over the area that commanders employed to pursue bands of fighters shooting at coalition forces.

The danger and complexity of the mission became evident as soon as Charlie Company of 1st Battalion of the 6th Marine Regiment approached the southeastern border of Marja at sunrise. To clear a path from the battalion command post to the outer canal, the Marines employed a tank equipped with metal fangs and a plow -- it looked like something from a post-apocalyptic science-fiction movie -- to lead the way.

The Marines also sought to detonate any bombs by firing rockets that lay a ribbon of explosives ahead of them. But even with those measures, they encountered 15 roadside bombs on a three-quarter-mile route from the command post to the canal. Each had to be methodically defused or destroyed.

"It's painstaking," said Lt. Col. Cal Worth, the battalion commander.

U.S. military officials deem Marja to be the most-mined part of Afghanistan. Taliban operatives set up numerous laboratories in the area over the past three years to manufacture homemade explosives, which they have placed in plastic jugs -- to avoid U.S. metal detection gear -- and buried underground. The bombs are equipped with detonators that are set off in a variety of ways: simple pressure plates, remote-control devices or wires connected to switches that are triggered by insurgents lying in wait.

Once they reached the canal, the Marines had to wait until a massive mobile bridge, which was carried atop a tank chassis, was extended and placed over an irrigation trench. Even with the bridge, a wide band of dense clay muck on both sides of the canal bogged down resupply trucks and other logistics vehicles. And insurgents repeatedly targeted the Marines with small-arms fire and mortars. As a consequence, the company made less headway into Marja than it had hoped.

"It's going to be slow," Worth said. "We have to do this in a deliberate way."

Even so, Worth said he aims to establish a "security bubble" over the next few days that will allow Afghan government officials and U.S. reconstruction personnel to operate in Marja.

Worth's other two companies -- Alpha and Bravo -- were inserted into central Marja by helicopter early Saturday. Each company, which consists of about 300 Marines and Afghan soldiers, proceeded slowly on foot, seeking to confront insurgents and reassure civilians they had come to restore security. They, too, came under regular fire from Taliban fighters holed up in adobe housing compounds.

Worth's battalion has been designated as the "main effort" of the operation. Another unit, the 3rd Battalion of the 6th Marine Regiment, is operating in the northern part of the Marja area. Two other Marine battalions and one battalion of U.S. Army Stryker vehicles are ringing the area to prevent fighters from fleeing to neighboring communities.

"We have accomplished what we wanted to do today: Get the forces into Marja," Nicholson said. "It went very well in terms of the complexity of what we attempted to in an unknown environment. We'll attempt to expand our positions tomorrow."

But he cautioned that the task ahead remains daunting. Taliban fighters, he said, do not seem to have deserted the area in droves or thrown down their weapons to blend in with the civilian population.

"There's still a lot of work to do," he said. "There are enormous areas that haven't been cleared yet."

WASHINGTON — Midway through the rancorous debate inside the Obama administration last fall over how to redefine America’s goals for the war in Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told his colleagues that they did not need to kill off the Taliban in every city and town in the country.

“We need to eliminate Al Qaeda, but we only need to degrade the capability of the Taliban,” Mr. Gates said. He spoke with the authority of a man who had seen from the inside what happened when, by his own account, the Bush administration focused far too little thought and resources on the battle for Afghanistan.

In the end, he said, the Obama approach to Afghanistan would rise or fall on whether “the Afghans themselves can create conditions that would keep the Taliban from returning.” In other words, whether after eight years of corruption and unfulfilled promises, the Afghan military and government could provide security, turn on the lights, run the schools and pipe in the water.

Now, two and a half months after President Obama publicly embraced that strategy, it is to be tested in the previously little-known town of Marja, the heart of Taliban country. On Saturday morning the long-awaited battle for the walled town began. But as one of Mr. Obama’s own advisers conceded in December, when recounting the arguments that took place in the Situation Room last fall, “it’s not about the battle, it’s about the postlude.”

The problem is that in the long run, postlude is largely out of Mr. Obama’s hands. It depends almost entirely on the abilities of President Hamid Karzai — who was deeply reluctant to start the battle in Marja — and, at the same time, on those of tribal leaders who deeply distrust Mr. Karzai. To many in Washington, that tendentious combination is what makes Marja, and the larger strategy behind the surge of 30,000 more troops, such a huge risk.

In the Bush years, the rallying cry when operations like Marja began was “clear, build and hold.” Mr. Obama has added a fourth step, “transfer.” At the end of the three-month-long review of Afghan strategy, Mr. Obama vowed he would begin no military operation unless a plan was in place to transfer authority promptly to the Afghans.

That plan exists in Marja, at least on paper. Both the Americans and the Afghan military did everything to advertise the coming military strike short of posting billboards with the date and size of the operation. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the American commander who persuaded Mr. Gates, and ultimately Mr. Obama, to try his form of counterinsurgency, insisted last week that the “transfer” element of the strategy had been prepared and would kick in as soon as the Taliban fled or were defeated.

“We’ve got a government in a box, ready to roll in,” General McChrystal said.

The gamble here is that once Afghans see the semblance of a state taking hold in Marja, rank-and-file Taliban will begin to take more seriously the offers that Mr. Karzai and the West are dangling to buy them off. Enticed by the offer of some political role in Afghan society — and a regular paycheck — they will think twice about trying to recapture the town. “We think many of the foot soldiers are in it for the money, not the ideology,” one British official said recently. “We need to test the proposition that it’s cheaper to enrich them a little than to fight them every spring and summer.”

The problem, of course, is that governments-in-a-box that are ready to roll in can also be rolled out — or rolled over. And the most heated arguments that unfolded during the Afghanistan review pitted those who thought that Mr. Karzai’s government needed one more chance to show it could get it right against those who argued that they had been to this movie before, and it always ended the same way.

No one put the warning to Mr. Obama more succinctly — or more baldly — than Karl W. Eikenberry, the American ambassador. A scholarly former general who served twice in Afghanistan, Mr. Eikenberry was among the first to raise the alarm during the Bush years that the American approach in Afghanistan was failing. Recently he warned Mr. Obama against putting the success of American strategy in Mr. Karzai’s less-than-reliable hands.

“President Karzai is not an adequate strategic partner,” he wrote in one of several cables to the State Department that, predictably, later leaked. Counterinsurgency is a great strategy, Mr. Eikenberry argued, but only if it is executed systematically and energetically. That was what was missing, he said, from the strategic reassessment that General McChrystal submitted late last summer.

“The proposed counterinsurgency strategy assumes an Afghan political leadership that is both able to take responsibility and to exert sovereignty in the furtherance of our goal,” he wrote. “Yet Karzai continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden, whether defense, governance or development. He and much of his circle do not want the U.S. to leave and are only too happy to see us invest further.” He is hardly alone in that assessment. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. gave voice to similar concerns. So did the leaders of India.

Mr. Eikenberry told Congress in December that his worries have since been largely allayed, and he is now perfectly satisfied with President Obama’s strategy. But he seemed to be speaking for a wing of the Obama administration that fears the Obama counterinsurgency strategy could crumble in Mr. Karzai’s hands.

On the first day of the long-planned offensive in Afghanistan, Thomas Harding joins the British forces in Helmand.

Showal: The flag of the Taliban still flew over Showal as sundown approached, signalling that last night a pocket of resistance still remained in the insurgents' capital of shadow governance.

A British and Afghan force had pushed to within 200 yards of the crane defiantly flying the white Taliban emblem over the small but symbolic town after landing before dawn as part of a great armada of helicopters in one of warfare's biggest helicopter assaults.
By the end of a day in which warm spring sun thwarted the chill and rain of the previous week-long wait for the launch of Operation Moshtarak, much of Taliban grip on central Helmand had, for now at least, been released.

The insurgents knew that an overwhelming force had assembled on the borders of their dwindling empire that manufactured hatred, bombs and narcotics in probably equal measure.

There had been talk of heroic stands but instead there were a few desultory firefights with the insurgents who chose to melt away leaving behind a more formidable enemy – the roadside bomb or improvised explosive device (IED).

When it was finally confirmed late on Friday that Operation Mostarak would begin there was relief among the men of the 1st Bn The Royal Welsh that the waiting was over, followed almost instantly by acknowledgement of the dangers ahead.

But as they trod through the darkness and dust of Camp Bastion to the airfield to embark on a fleet of helicopters there was a sense of history being made.

There was also a thread of kinship with previous generations of soldiers who have boarded aircraft at night knowing immense danger lay ahead, and acknowledging that not all might return.

They were part of a force of 15,000 mainly American, British and Afghan soldiers who launched the biggest assault on the Taliban to bring all of central Helmand under government control and long-awaited security to its people.

It was not lost on the men who have been shedding blood and sweat for the last four years with only incremental gains that the game was now on finally to win over the fractious province.

If successful the surge in Helmand, that since 2006 has seen the small British force treble to 10,000 boosted by 21,000 Americans, could provide a template for at least containing the Taliban insurgency enough to allow the gradual withdrawal of foreign troops.

But in anticipation of the assault minds were probably some distance from grand strategies as soldiers sipped on steaming coffee from the back of a truck or smoked a final cigarette at 2am on Saturday morning, after a few hours of difficult sleep. The jovial patter of our many rehearsals was replaced by more sober reflection as "20 minutes" was called before we were to embark on the long line of Chinooks.

The sense that the operation was a "go" cemented as British and Afghan troops, along with their muscular French mentors, crammed into the aircraft, the differences in nationalities temporarily forgotten in the empathy of looming battle.

Two minutes before lift-off the whine of rotors in our aircraft dropped and then the blades stilled. For an anxious 10 minutes the entire air assault was in abeyance until the engine restarted and we climbed giddily and then thumped towards landing zone Pegasus, south of Showal.

For the first time in their tour, for A Company, Royal Welsh there was no enemy fire to greet them and instead we disembarked unsteadily into the darkness and ankle deep mud, some soldiers sinking deeper than most carrying loads of almost 100lbs.

The Telegraph was accompanying the first wave. Now we were on the ground without loss of life and for that we were grateful, after briefings of what would happen if one helicopter "piled in" or if two fell from the sky.

An arresting sight then filled the night sky. Waves of six helicopters in line astern arrived on station overhead, each in sequence turning on their landing lights and remaining almost as stationary as the stars around them, a great illumination hanging in the heavens. Then their light would disappear as they descended quickly to land, safely disgorging 1,200 men in the British sector within two hours.

As first light approached the Royal Welsh were still just short of the first objective, a high-walled compound where the soldiers planned to set up base. With weapons and ammunition coated in mud, they had been delayed by the careful need to check for bombs.

The soldier's morbid sense of humour did not desert men sweating under heavy loads in the face of IEDs.

"I hope that guy in front of me doesn't step on a mine, he's carrying six RPG (rocket propelled grenade) rounds," said one, referring to an Afghan gunner in front.

"Aye, he will go up like a Roman candle," his comrade replied and both laughed.

At first Showal's population was unconvinced by the arrival of the force thinking it would be transient visit rather than the planned-for long stay.

"This place is very dangerous," said an elder whose compound of 34 inhabitants had just been taken over by British and Afghan troops, his disgruntlement assuaged by handsome compensation. "All the Taliban live in Showal and give us problems. They punch us. This is the problem. There is no security.

"Now they will punish us for Isaf forces coming into this compound when they find out you are here. All the people have a problem with the Taliban here, they take money and food off us."

For almost two years the insurgents had held the town, using it as a bomb-building base and opium bazaar. Their authority is so firm that the white flag, the Taliban's emblem, flies from the disused crane at the northern tip.

"If you want to take Showal from the Taliban you have to remove the flag. I am very happy if you remove the flag, we just need more security," the elder said.

Inside the compound soldiers worked together, filling sandbags to build machine gun emplacements on the roof and using pickaxes to cut out firing points into the thick 12ft walls, to fend off any Taliban counter attacks.

Their work became more hurried as the first of 11 large detonations was heard, the unmistakeable sound of roadside bombs. They may have been detonated deliberately by the Taliban, set off by animals or triggered by Royal Engineer bomb disposal teams. Or they could have been accidental blasts set off by as Taliban fighters tried to lay bombs. "With a bit of luck a few of them will be own goals," said one soldier.

A few minutes later ANA troops who had discovered an insurgent radio began chatting to the Taliban, telling them they had arrived with a substantial force.

We stepped out from the compound in trepidation that a town known for its bomb-making could be sown with hidden devices.

Patiently the soldiers at the front swung their mine-detectors, searching for IEDs, as others kept watch for ambushes down the narrow lanes between high compound walls.

With Showal known to be a centre of Taliban control in Nad-e-Ali it came as no surprise that within a few hours a large bomb-making factory was discovered. Behind the high walls of a compound a substantial haul of bomb-making equipment, that has been responsible for so many soldiers' deaths, was discovered.

Soldiers uncovered up to 40 pressure plate IEDs already assembled - each one capable of killing a British soldier - gunpowder in addition to rocket propelled grenade warheads and 105mm artillery rounds that are buried with a detonator in the ground to become deadly booby traps. Pamphlets on bomb making were also discovered although the manufacturers had fled probably as the air assault arrived.

In the nearby village of Naqilebad Kulay other troops of the Royal Welsh were said to be welcomed by the people who escorted them into the village.

They reported that the Taliban had fled the night before the assault.

At the first shura meeting in a mosque more than 100 villagers rapidly assembled to hear Lt Col Nick Lock, the Royal Welsh battle group commander, say he had arrived to provide security "so that you can live your lives in peace".

"My soldiers will respect your culture and they will also help with projects to improve the situation here. We are here to stay and we will make sure that the insurgents do not come back.

"One of the first things we need to do is remove IEDs from this area and we need your help to do that. This is a crucial stage and you must decide if you want to build a better future for Showal."

We set off northwards again towards the totemic crane but were called back.

The day had gone smoothly enough Brigadier James Cowan, the British commander of Task Force Helmand, to helicopter into the town to reassure the population.

Shortly after telling the locals elders, "We come in peace" an IED detonated in the background and he asked: "Do you hear that? That's the Taliban. Who do the IED's harm? Is it not your children?"

But his audience looked as if they needed more tangible guarantees of security before the few nodding heads could become a chorus of agreement.

After being recalled for the brigadier's protection, the patrol we were with resumed its northwards push past gazing local children and mildly suspicious men with no women in sight.

Following several fruitless compound searches the soldiers rounded a corner and there, less than 200 yards away was the crane, its white flag still flying defiantly.

There was no sign of the foe who had perhaps crept away to return again when less of an arsenal is arranged against him. But the decision it was wiser to delay capturing the flag until next day.

"It's been a good day for Afghanistan," Brig Cowan told me after we returned to the compound. But the country needs many more like it.

OUTSKIRTS OF MARJAH, Afghanistan – U.S. Marines and Afghan troops faced rocket and heavy machine-gun fire from insurgents entrenched inside a Taliban-held town Saturday, as a long-expected offensive began to re-establish government control.

The assault on Marjah is the biggest offensive since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and will serve as a major test of a new NATO strategy focused on protecting civilians. The attack is also the first major combat operation since President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 U.S. reinforcements here in December to try to turn the tide of the war.

Detecting multiple layers of insurgent defenses encircling the city, Cobra helicopters fired Hellfire missiles at tunnels, bunkers, and other defensive positions. Militants also flooded the main canal at the town's entrance, making it more difficult for U.S.-led forces to enter on foot.

Marine commanders had said they expected between 400 to 1,000 insurgents — including more than 100 foreign fighters — to be holed up in Marjah, a town of 80,000 people in Helmand province. Marjah, located 360 miles (610 kilometers) southwest of Kabul, is the biggest southern town under Taliban control and the linchpin of the militants' logistical and opium-smuggling network.

Sporadic rocket fire from insurgents and the rattle of gunfire echoed in the air. A U.S. missile detonated a massive 55-gallon (208-liter) fuel-drum bomb that sent a mushroom of black smoke dozens of yards (meters) into the sky.

Helicopters carrying hundreds of U.S. Marines and Afghan troops swooped into town under the cover of darkness early Saturday with a ground assault of thousands of additional forces expected to follow.

"The first wave of choppers has landed inside Marjah. The operation has begun," said Capt. Joshua Winfrey, commander of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, which was at the forefront of the attack.

The operation, codenamed "Moshtarak," or Together, was described as the biggest joint operation of the Afghan war. Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, commander of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, said 15,000 troops were involved, including some 7,500 troops fighting in Marjah.

To the north, British, American and Canadian forces struck in the Nad Ali district in a push to break Taliban power in Helmand, one of the major battlefields of the war.

In a village north of Marjah, residents said they heard gunfire before dawn but then it went quiet. Abdul Manan, a farmer in the village of Saipo, said he finally decided to risk going out of his house and saw American troops walking by. They told him to go back inside.

Taliban militants who had been in his village two days ago disappeared. "I don't see any Taliban now. I see Americans," he told The Associated Press by phone.

Once the town is secured, NATO hopes to rush in aid and restore public services in a bid to win support among the estimated 125,000 people who live in Marjah and surrounding villages. The Afghans' ability to restore those services is crucial to the success of the operation and to prevent the Taliban from returning.

Tribal elders have pleaded for NATO to finish the operation quickly and spare civilians — an appeal that offers some hope the townspeople will cooperate with Afghan and international forces once the Taliban are gone.

At the Pentagon, a senior U.S. official said Afghan President Hamid Karzai had signed off on the attack.

Another defense official said Karzai was informed of planning for the operation well in advance. The official said it marked a first in terms of both sharing information prior to the attack and planning collaboration with the Afghan government.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because there were not authorized to speak publicly.

The second official said the number of Afghan security forces in the district have roughly doubled since Obama's first infusion of some 10,000 Marines in southern Afghanistan last year.

The Marjah offensive involves close combat in extremely difficult terrain, that official said. A close grid of wide canals dug by the United States as an aid project decades ago make the territory a particularly rich agricultural prize but complicate the advance of U.S. forces.

On the eve of the attack, cars and trucks jammed the main road out of Marjah on Friday as hundreds of civilians defied militant orders and fled the area. For weeks, U.S. commanders had signaled their intention to attack Marjah in hopes that civilians would seek shelter.

Residents told The Associated Press by telephone this week that Taliban fighters were preventing them from leaving, warning the roads were planted with bombs to slow the NATO advance.

Still, many people fled anyway for the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, 20 miles (30 kilometers) to the northeast. They told journalists they had to leave quickly and secretly, slipping out of town when Taliban commanders weren't watching.

Provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi said about 450 families — an estimated 2,700 people — had already sought refuge in Lashkar Gah. Most moved in with relatives but more than 100 were being sheltered by the government, he said.

Ahmadi said the local government was prepared to shelter 7,000 families in nearby towns, providing them with food, blankets and dishes.

In advance of the attack, Afghan officials urged community leaders in Marjah to use their influence to persuade the Taliban to lay down their weapons and avoid a bloodbath. In return, the officials promised to improve the lives of the people there.

Some of the Marjah elders said they were too scared to talk to the Taliban, but some said they had reached out.

One of the main drafters of the letter to government officials said though he and others had been trying to call local Taliban commanders, many of the Afghan Taliban had already fled.

Militant commanders from the Middle East or Pakistan have stayed on "and they want to fight," said Abdul Rehman Jan, an elder who lives in Lashkar Gah.

___

Associated Press writers Noor Khan in Kandahar, Christopher Torchia outside Marjah, Amir Shah in Kabul, and Anne Gearan and Anne Flaherty in Washington contributed to this report.

Marines begin major operation in Marja, Afghanistan LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY

CAMP LEATHERNECK, AFGHANISTAN -- Thousands of U.S. Marines and Afghan soldiers traveling in helicopters and mine-resistant vehicles began punching into a key Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan early Saturday, as the largest military operation since 2001 to assert government control over this country got underway.

The first wave of Marines and Afghan soldiers swooped into the farming community of Marja about 2 a.m. Saturday local time (4:30 p.m. Eastern), their CH-53 Super Stallion transport helicopters landing amid clouds of dust on fallow fields. As the troops, weighed down with ammunition and supplies, lumbered out and set up defensive positions, AV-8B Harrier fighter jets and AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters circled overhead in the moonless sky.

Two more waves of troops touched down over the following 90 minutes near other strategic locations in Marja. Insurgents mounted scattered attacks on the coalition forces in the initial hours of the operation, causing no significant casualties.

At sunrise, hundreds more Marines and Afghan soldiers entered the area by land, using mobile bridges to ford irrigation canals -- built by U.S. engineers more than 50 years ago -- that have served as defensive moats for the Taliban. Heavily armored mine-sweeping trucks and specially outfitted tanks worked to carve a path through a belt of makeshift bombs buried around the town.

The Marines entering Marja are with some of the first new military units to arrive in Afghanistan as a result of President Obama's decision in December to authorize the deployment of 30,000 additional troops to combat a growing insurgency. The operation is intended to deprive the Taliban of a haven in Helmand province, which military intelligence officials say is home to numerous bombmaking facilities and drug-processing labs.

"We're going to take Marja away from the Taliban," said Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade. Doing so, he said, could result in "a fundamental change in Helmand and, by extension, the entire nation of Afghanistan."
'We're a go'

Although there have been other large U.S. military campaigns to flush out the Taliban in the eight-year-long war, this mission is different, involving more extensive cooperation with the Afghan army than any previous effort. Each U.S. Marine company is partnered with an Afghan one -- American and Afghan troops sat side by side on the helicopters -- and a top U.S. commander is working next to an Afghan general in a command center.

When other Marine battalions swept into communities along the Helmand River last summer, there was only one Afghan soldier for every 10 U.S. troops. This time, there is one Afghan for every two Americans. "This is a ratio that the Afghan people want to see, and the American people need to see," said John Kael Weston, the State Department representative to the Marine brigade.

U.S. officials said Afghan President Hamid Karzai authorized the incursion Friday evening after discussions with U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. It is the first major military operation of the war that Karzai has endorsed, the officials said.

According to the officials, Karzai had been ambivalent about a military push into Marja, hoping instead to persuade some of the insurgents to participate in a reintegration program. But Eikenberry and McChrystal, as well as some senior members of Karzai's cabinet, urged him to approve the operation, noting that fighters in the area have had months to switch their allegiance. They also emphasized that more than 400 tribal elders from Marja and surrounding areas had voiced support for an incursion at meetings organized by Helmand's governor Thursday and Friday.

Marine officers were not certain the mission would proceed until five hours before the first helicopters were slated to take off, when Nicholson announced to his senior staff: "President Karzai agreed to the operation. We're a go."

The complex airborne insertion of Marines and Afghan soldiers involved 36 transport helicopter flights and more than two dozen other support aircraft.

It is not certain how insurgents in the area will react as the operation proceeds, but Marine commanders expect many of them to stand and fight. U.S. military intelligence reports have indicated that senior Taliban leaders may have crossed into Afghanistan from their redoubts in Pakistan in recent days to direct defensive operations in Marja.

In the face of past operations, however, many insurgents have simply fled to nearby areas where there are fewer security forces. Marine and Army units have sought to encircle the Marja area to prevent fighters from fleeing, but there are still vast stretches of desert through which they could slip.

Even if the insurgents do not fight in large numbers, Marja will remain treacherous ground, littered with buried homemade explosive devices. Marine officers say it is the most heavily mined part of the country.

In the hours before the Marines landed, unmanned Predator aircraft and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters targeted men who were spotted laying roadside bombs and setting up antiaircraft guns. Eleven of them were killed in the strikes.

Civilians sought to leave the area ahead of the operation. Some made it out, in cars and on tractors piled with their belongings, but the insurgents forced others to remain in their homes, military officers said. In some cases, they said, Taliban members told residents that roads out of Marja had been mined.

About 3,500 U.S. Marines, sailors and soldiers, accompanied by about 1,500 Afghan army infantrymen, are directly involved in the mission, supported by thousands more troops at nearby bases. More than 500 paramilitary police will join the effort Sunday or Monday.
Reasserting control

The push to retake Marja is part of a larger NATO effort, dubbed Operation Moshtarak, which means "together" in the Dari language, to reassert control over parts of Helmand that have become Taliban sanctuaries. About 5,000 British, Danish and Afghan forces, also traveling in helicopters and armored vehicles, moved into the northern part of Nad Ali district shortly after the first Marines arrived in Marja.

Marja, a 155-square-mile farming community of 80,000 people, is crisscrossed with irrigation canals. They were built by U.S. contractors in the 1950s in an effort to transform the desert into cropland so Afghanistan could provide enough food to feed its people.

The Taliban moved into the area three years ago after striking deals with opium-producing poppy growers and drug traffickers to protect their operations in exchange for the freedom to set up bomb factories among the canals, which are too deep for combat vehicles to drive across.

"The United States built Marja," Nicholson said. "We're going to come back and fix it."

Nicholson and other commanders say that pacifying Marja is essential to implementing counterinsurgency operations in more populous areas of Helmand, which in turn are regarded as central to improving security in Kandahar, the country's second-largest city.

The canals pose a significant challenge for the Marines. The two principal units in the area -- the 1st and 3rd battalions of the 6th Marine Regiment -- will operate largely on foot, carting food, water and other supplies on their backs. Engineering units will seek to set up temporary bridges to allow combat vehicles to cross.

Once the central part of Marja is cleared of fighters, a team of U.S. and British diplomats and reconstruction personnel will set up a stabilization office. A top priority will be to assist the newly appointed district governor, Haji Zahir, who recently returned to Afghanistan after spending 15 years in Germany. The Marines have identified dozens of potential quick-impact projects to help the local population -- from fixing health clinics to drilling wells -- and have received permission to spend more than $800,000 on such activities.

But U.S. officials also want the Karzai administration to send personnel and deliver services to the area, describing the mission as a gauge of Kabul's willingness to take advantage of opportunities created by the new troops.

Weston, the State Department representative, said, "Marja is a test of the central government's ability to reach down to a still-volatile part of the country and deliver sustainable governance."

More than 15,000 American, British and Afghan troops have launched the biggest offensive in Afghanistan since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.

Helicopter-borne forces are attacking the Taliban-held districts of Marjah and Nad Ali in Helmand province in a bid to re-establish government control.

Nato says Marjah is home to the biggest community under insurgent control in the south and 400 to 1,000 militants.

Many residents fled ahead of Operation Moshtarak - meaning "together" in Dari.

Nato had distributed leaflets in the Marjah area warning of the planned offensive in a bid to limit civilian casualties. Villagers said they warned Taliban fighters to leave the area or be killed.
“ We are going to take this place and take it very hard ”
Senior Nato official

Despite the warnings, reports from Helmand suggest many civilians remain, while the Taliban has claimed its fighters are ready to resist the assault.

It is thought the Taliban will have prepared defences, and planted many improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on the routes they expect troops to take.

Earlier this week British forces began a "softening up" process, taking part in a Nato ground and air offensive on insurgent positions.

On Thursday a British soldier involved in Operation Moshtarak was killed by an IED, and UK Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth has warned that there will be more casualties in the coming days.

'First wave'

Operation Moshtarak is being led by the US Marine Corps, but a total of 4,000 British troops are involved on the ground and in support, supported by Danes and Estonians.
AT THE SCENE
Frank Gardner BBC News Kandahar airbase

British forces are taking part on the ground and in the air, amongst a total of 15,000 coalition and Afghan troops. Intelligence reports that some insurgents have decided not to fight, but that others have been laying clusters of improvised explosive devices on the routes they expect troops to take.

Senior British and other officers here at this airbase have spent months planning this operation, which they say has been closely co-ordinated with Afghan leaders, both civil and military. The test of its success will not just be on the battlefield today, but in whether it can bring lasting security and good governance to the population of central Helmand.

The initial offensive in Marjah, in Nad Ali district, began early on Saturday.

More than 4,000 US marines, 1,500 Afghan soldiers and 300 US soldiers moved in by helicopter under cover of night.

The assault was preceded by illumination flares, which were fired over the town at about 0200 local time (2130 GMT on Friday ), the Associated Press reported.

"The first wave of choppers has landed inside Marjah. The operation has begun," said Capt Joshua Winfrey, commander of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, which was at the forefront of the attack.

For the first time Afghan forces have been at the forefront of planning and will share the burden of the fighting. More than 1,900 Afghan police will provide support after the initial military operations end, and a large team of Afghan administrators have been assembled.

"We are in this together. We planned it together; we will fight it together; we will see it through together. Afghans with allies; soldiers with civilians; government with its people," the commander of British forces in Helmand, Brig James Cowan, told his troops on Thursday.

"Soon we will clear the Taliban from its safe havens in central Helmand. Where we go, we will stay. Where we stay, we will build."

'Tipping point'

A senior Nato official told the BBC that Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, had approved the start of the offensive on Thursday.

The official said it was "probably the definitive operation" of the counter-insurgency strategy outlined last year by the commander of both Nato and US forces in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal.

"If it goes well, this operation could potentially define the tipping point, the crucial momentum aspect in the counter-insurgency," the official said. "We are going to take this place and take it very hard."

The decision to go into Marjah is part of an effort to secure a 320km (200-mile) horseshoe-shaped string of towns that runs along the Helmand River, through Kandahar and on to the Pakistani border. The area holds 85% of the population of Kandahar and Helmand.

MARJAH: 'TALIBAN STRONGHOLD'
# Town and district about 40km (25 miles) south-west of Lashkar Gah
# Lies in Helmand's 'Green Zone' - an irrigated area of lush vegetation and farmland
# Last remaining major Taliban stronghold in southern Helmand
# Area considered a centre for assembling roadside bombs
# Key supply centre for opium poppies - lucrative revenue source for Taliban
# Estimates of Taliban numbers range up to 1,000
# Population of Marjah town put at 80,000 while the whole of Marjah district is thought to have 125,000

The BBC's Adam Brookes says the offensive has political importance in Washington because it is by far the largest single operation since President Barack Obama announced a "surge" in December, increasing the number of US troops in the country by 30,000 to nearly 100,000.

Marjah, which lies in Helmand's "green zone" - an irrigated area of lush vegetation and farmland - is a hive of Taliban activity and is a centre for cultivation of opium poppies.

Once the area is secured, Nato hopes to provide aid and to restore public services in the area. The aim, the alliance says, is to win support among the estimated 125,000 people who live there and prevent the Taliban from regaining control.

KABUL, Afghanistan — For all the fighting that lies ahead over the next several days, no one doubts that the American and Afghan troops swarming into the Taliban redoubt of Marja will ultimately clear it of insurgents.

And that is when the real test will begin.

For much of the past eight years, American and NATO forces have mounted other large military operations to clear towns and cities of Taliban insurgents. And then, almost invariably, they have cleared out, never leaving behind enough soldiers or police officers to hold the place on their own.

And so, almost always, the Taliban returned — and, after a time, so did the American and NATO troops, to clear the place all over again.

“Mowing the grass,” the soldiers and Marines derisively call it.

This time, in Marja, the largest Taliban stronghold, American and Afghan commanders say they will do something they have never done before: bring in an Afghan government and police force behind them. American and British troops will stay on to support them. “We’ve got a government in a box, ready to roll in,” said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American commander here.

Indeed, Marja is intended to serve as a prototype for a new type of military operation, based on the counterinsurgency thinking propounded by General McChrystal in the prelude to President Obama’s decision in December to increase the number of American troops here to nearly 100,000.

More than at any time since 2001, American and NATO soldiers will focus less on killing Taliban insurgents than on sparing Afghan civilians and building an Afghan state.

“The population is not the enemy,” Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, the commander of the Marines in southern Afghanistan, told a group of troops this week. “The population is the prize — they are why we are going in.”

To realize their goals, the Americans and their allies want to capture the area with a minimum amount of violence. American commanders say the attack on Marja is intended to be nothing like the similar size assault on the city of Falluja, Iraq, in November 2004. In that case, Falluja, under the control of hundreds of insurgents, was largely destroyed. The Americans killed plenty of guerrillas, but they did not make any friends.

“We don’t want Falluja,” General McChrystal said in an interview this week. “Falluja is not the model.”

Sparing civilian life may not be easy, especially in the close-quarters combat that lies ahead. Hundreds of Taliban fighters are believed to be in the area. And the American-led force may yet get bogged down — by the network of irrigation canals, built by the United States in the 1950s, or by the hundreds of homemade bombs that Taliban fighters have planted in the roads and trails.

The chief worry among both American and Afghan commanders is that if a large number of civilians are killed, the Afghan government — including its sometimes erratic president, Hamid Karzai — could withdraw its support.

The Americans are hoping, too, that the largely Afghan composition of the invading force — about 60 percent of the total — will give Mr. Karzai’s government sufficient cover if anything goes wrong.

But at some point the operation will end, and when it does General McChrystal has set goals for the Americans and the Afghans that are less dramatic, but far more ambitious, than fighting.

For the first time, NATO and Afghan officials have assembled a large team of Afghan administrators and an Afghan governor that will move into Marja the moment the shooting stops. More than 1,900 police are standing by.

Setting up a government in this impoverished country is no small task. Across Afghanistan, the Afghan government and its police are reviled for their inefficiency and corruption.

“We want to show people that we can deliver police, and services, and development,” said Lt. Gen. Mohammed Karimi, the deputy chief of staff of the Afghan Army. “We want to convince the Afghans that the government is for them.”

At a broader level, the attack on Marja is the first move in an ambitious effort to break the Taliban in their heartland. Over the next several months, the Americans are hoping to secure a 200-mile long horseshoe-shaped string of cities that runs along the Helmand River, through Kandahar and then on to the Pakistani border. The ribbon holds 85 percent of the population of Kandahar and Helmand Provinces, the Taliban’s base of support. In the next several months, the Americans and Afghans are planning to pour thousands of troops into that area.

“We are trying to take away any hope of victory,” General McChrystal said.

That would set the stage for a political settlement that General McChrystal believes is the only way the war will end.

The risks in the strategy are obvious enough. Eight years after being expelled from Kabul, the Taliban are fighting more vigorously, and operating in more places, than at any point since the American-led war began here in 2001. The Taliban have “shadow governors” in every province but Kabul itself. Twice the number of American soldiers were killed last year as the year before.

And there is some chance, even after the offensive, that the insurgents will simply flee to another part of the country. They have done it before; many of the fighters now inside Marja once operated in other Helmand towns.

Finally, there is only so much the Americans and their NATO partners can do. The rest is up to the Afghans themselves. Despite years of work, the Afghan Army cannot sustain itself in the field, the police are loathed in nearly every place they work, and the government of Mr. Karzai has only a few serious worldwide rivals in corruption and graft.

In a conversation this week, a senior American official in Kabul said that his greatest worry was not the Taliban, or even that the Marja operation would fail. “What do I worry about?” he said, “Dependency.” That is, the fear that Afghanistan’s leaders and people will not, in the end, stand up for themselves.

In that sense, who emerges as the victor in Marja may not be clear for many months.

C. J. Chivers contributed reporting from Helmand Province.

Pacifying insurgents with jobs and money is central to our strategy in Afghanistan. It's also misguided.

From the magazine issue dated Feb 22, 2010

Huddled in the unheated, mud-walled room that serves as the dormitory of their madrassa, not far from the Pakistani city of Quetta, four religious students are talking about the war across the border. They've heard about U.S. plans for luring away thousands of Taliban with offers of jobs and money and persuading the rest to make peace. But the young men say it won't work. "I've lost one of my brothers and 10 other close relatives in the jihad," says Mohammad Salim Akhund, a 21-year-old fighter from Kandahar province. "Any thought of surrendering for money, or entering into any negotiations with our enemies, would dishonor these sacrifices." His young schoolmate Jama-luddin speaks up: "If you're committed to jihad, you won't leave for a mountain of money." At 18, he's the only one of the four who hasn't already fought in Afghanistan, but he expects to go in about two months, as soon as his religious studies are completed. "I want to die in the jihad," he says. "Not as a sick old man under a blanket at home."

To hear some Western officials talk, the Afghan war is practically over. U.S. commanders are placing big hopes on the impending surge of 30,000 additional U.S. troops, and donor nations at a recent conference in London pledged $500 million to help Taliban defectors make the transition to civilian life. Special envoy Richard Holbrooke and other senior U.S. officials have repeatedly argued that 70 percent of Afghanistan's insurgents are fighting merely for pay or strictly local aims and therefore can be "peeled away" from the hard-core believers. At that point, allied strategists hope, senior leaders of the weakened and divided insurgency will agree to substantive peace talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and "irreconcilables" like Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and his inner circle will end up isolated and largely powerless. The Pakistani government is said to be ready to assist in such talks, and Karzai is even calling for a Loya Jirga—a mass meeting of all Afghan tribal leaders, including the Taliban—to hammer out a power-sharing deal.

It all sounds fine—until you talk to the insurgents themselves. Over the past few weeks, NEWSWEEK has interviewed dozens of Taliban commanders and foot soldiers, and not one showed any interest in money or power-sharing deals. They insist they have a sacred duty to drive the invaders out of Afghanistan, return Mullah Omar's self-proclaimed Islamic Emirate to power, and reimpose his merciless version of Islamic law throughout the land. "In the next few months we will prove this is not a fight for power, for land, or for becoming president, but for Islam, ideology, and jihad," says a top Taliban official, a former cabinet minister who attends the insurgency's senior leadership meetings and who has never before spoken to the Western press. (He's unwilling to be named.) "You say 70 percent are fighting for money and can be bribed?" he asks. "You'll be lucky if you get 5 percent."

If there's one thing that motivates the insurgents to keep fighting, religious fervor aside, it's vengeance. Nearly all Taliban are ethnic Pashtuns who adhere to the age-old code of conduct known as Pashtunwali. One of the required duties under its rules is eye-for-an-eye revenge. Just about every Taliban who talked to -NEWSWEEK for this story recited lists of kinsmen who had been killed in the war, or imprisoned, or humiliated by Coalition searches of family compounds. At least in part, their reason for going to war was to seek payback against those who had inflicted pain and dishonor on their relatives. Taliban fighters proudly speak of many civilians who took up arms after an elder sibling's death in battle.

But even Taliban members who are sick of killing aren't eager to defect. Once a fighter has quit the insurgents' ranks, there's no going back, not even to his home village. Those who have tried are usually murdered. NEWSWEEK has interviewed a number of defectors who now sadly roam Kabul or other large towns, living hand-to-mouth, without jobs or prospects, and who rue the day they abandoned the fight. The police are always watching their houses and movements. Former Taliban officials living in Kabul may lead more comfortable lives, but they too live under a microscope. All visitors to their homes have to register with the police who stand guard outside their doors.

The Afghan capital is no longer a place where rural Pashtuns feel at home, whether they're Taliban or not. Striking in their distinctive large black turbans and kohl eyeliner, they're routinely harassed by the police and occasionally mocked by passersby. The city's social transformation is even harder for them to accept. A few women still wear burqas on the streets, but most simply wear headscarves, long dresses, and a covering robe. It's not uncommon to see young men and women walking together, talking, and sometimes touching. Some grocers sell beer and whisky, even pork, out the back door.

All this is happening to a city that the Taliban, even though they never officially ruled from there, consider their own. Since the collapse of Mullah Omar's regime, the city has ballooned from a deafeningly quiet town of 1 million people to a metropolis of some 4.5 million. Many of the newcomers have been ethnic Pashtuns fleeing the fighting in the south and east, and they now constitute perhaps half the city's population. But they barely seem to exist, if you go by the language used on street signs and local radio and TV. The language of government is Dari, spoken mostly in northern Afghanistan. All shop signs are in Dari. Pashto is taught at the university like a foreign language, along with English and Arabic. Most of the police on the capital's streets are Tajiks, and few of them speak Pashto. Insurgent commanders say their goal is to change all this, not settle for a share of power in the Pashtun heartland down south.

The Taliban have shown they're willing to negotiate—when it suits their purposes. They've cut deals with relief groups and even government officials to get hefty ransom payments for kidnapped civilians. But previous "peace talks" with the Kabul government have involved only ex-insurgents, who have limited, if any, influence over the Taliban leadership. Those commanders are not about to bargain away their dreams of ruling the country again. They've made it through times that seemed truly hopeless. While most mujahedin groups fell prey to infighting in the war against the Soviets, they've remained united for eight solid years. Now they need only hang on until the Americans go home. "It makes no sense that we would want to negotiate now, as we gain strength," says Mullah Shabir Nasir, the insurgency's regional commander for central Afghanistan.

Assad Khan, 32, a tall, thin fighter with a long beard, turns visibly agitated when a NEWSWEEK reporter mentions peace talks and defections. "You dare to ask me about negotiations and surrender?" he demands. "Look, a hundred friends of mine have been killed, and hundreds more arrested. Do you think we can be defeated by bombing, by Kabul's torturers, by chains in Guantánamo, or American dollars?" The answer may become clear in the next few months.

KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber wearing the uniform of an Afghan border police officer, who wounded five American soldiers on Thursday, was in fact a border police officer working for the Taliban, a Taliban spokesman said Friday.

The Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, was contacted by telephone. The attack took place at a joint Afghan-United States military base in the Pathan District of Paktia Province, according to Rahoullah Samoun, the spokesman for the governor of Paktia in eastern Afghanistan. A statement from the International Security Assistance Force, the American-led NATO force in Afghanistan, said that several American soldiers had been wounded but that there were no fatalities.

On Dec. 30, in another eastern Afghan province, Khost, a Jordanian double agent attacked a C.I.A. base, killing seven Americans and a Jordanian. The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack, too.

Elsewhere in Paktia Province, coalition officials and the Afghan police gave varying accounts of an episode in the Gardez District in which civilians were killed.

A statement from the coalition said Afghan and NATO forces had gone to a compound in the village of Khatabeh, where insurgents opened fire on them. Several insurgents were killed and a large number of men, women and children fled and were detained, the coalition said.

Inside the compound, the coalition said, soldiers “found the bodies of three women who had been tied up, gagged and killed.” The Paktia provincial police chief, Aziz Ahmad Wardak, said the bodies of two men had also been found in the house.

The three women had been killed by Taliban militants, he said.

Maj. Matthew Gregory, a United States Army spokesman, said Friday that the two men inside the house were killed by coalition forces after they opened fire on a joint patrol.

BADULA QULP, Afghanistan — His father fought for the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the early 1980s. Now he is also in Afghanistan, fighting for the U.S. Army in another war, in a new generation.

"It's the same thing," said Staff Sgt. Aleksey Butkov, a resident of Portland, Ore. who was born in the Soviet Union and emigrated as a child. "Twenty-seven years later, it's the same thing."

By that, Butkov is not talking about the big picture. The Soviet invasion during the Cold War, and the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that unleashed U.S. retaliation against al-Qaida and its Taliban hosts were "two different sides, two different approaches," he said.

What he is really talking about is personal experience — that of his father in wartime, and his own, now.

"We're pretty much there to do someone else's work, and when you are on the ground, you only care about your buddies, left and right," said Butkov, a squad leader with the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment from the 5th Stryker Brigade, which is supporting Marine operations against the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in southern Afghanistan.

Many children follow their parents into a military career, and Butkov is no exception. But he is a rarity, fighting in the same country as his father, but for a different superpower. The common denominator is a lethal, inventive enemy that cannot defeat a big military force head-on, but seeks to harass, striking and slipping away in a country where warfare has been a way of life for centuries.

Aleksey Ivanovich Butkov, the elder, fought in Afghanistan between 1982 and 1984, driving an armored personnel carrier that his son described as the "Russian version of a Stryker," a U.S. infantry carrier. The son, Aleksey Alekseyevich Butkov, travels in Strykers, which are routinely targeted by insurgents who plant roadside bombs in culverts and packed earth or other hiding places.

In the south, where the junior Butkov is on a mission, the land is dry and flat, desert that stretches to the horizon. The elder Butkov was based in Mazar-i-Sharif during the Soviet occupation, patrolling a northern border area where mujahedeen, U.S.-backed Islamic guerrillas, used mountain passes to ambush Red Army vehicles.

Even today, the wrecks of Soviet military vehicles sit on the side of some roads in Afghanistan.

"We don't have to worry about someone crawling up high and throwing something down on us," said the younger Butkov, who said the Soviet soldiers were "sitting ducks" in mountainous terrain.

Roadside bombs are the problem for American troops in the south. In September, Butkov had dismounted from a Stryker and was walking ahead of it when it hit a concealed bomb near a creek.

"As I was flying forward from the blast, I looked back, and I saw the Stryker rise up," said Butkov, who turns 24 on Feb. 18. Two men were injured.

Butkov's father moved to the United States in the early 1990s after his native Ukraine became independent during the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the son, as a curious teen-ager, used to ask him about Afghanistan. His father told him that his armored personnel carrier was once burned up, though Butkov doesn't know the details of what happened.

"Now that I've gotten older, I really don't ask anymore, because I've seen it for myself," said Butkov, who became a U.S. citizen and is married with a young child. "It's one of those things you don't want to discuss."

He said he has a "silent agreement" with his father, now a truck driver, not to talk about their Afghan wars, though the stories he heard made the country seem familiar when he first deployed. It is his second tour in Afghanistan.

Butkov said he has walked into areas in Afghanistan where isolated residents thought his American unit was Russian, as though the Soviet occupation had never ended. '"Are you still here?"' the residents asked.

Once, he told an Afghan soldier, an older man who surely remembered or even fought during the Soviet occupation, that his father was on the Russian side decades ago. The Afghan's reaction was hard to read, possibly hostile, Butkov said.

"He didn't say anything. Then he said: 'I don't believe you,"' he said. "He had a cigarette and walked off."

Cartoons By Zahid Khan