United States-led troops on Friday dropped leaflets and broadcast radio messages warning Afghans not to shelter the Taliban as they prepared to assault a key insurgent bastion.
Thousands of US Marines, along with Afghan and Nato soldiers, have thrown a ring of steel around Marjah, a town of 80 000 in the southern province of Helmand, just 20km from the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.
They are gearing up to launch an offensive, called Operation Mushtarak (“Together”), to drive out militants and drug traffickers who together have long controlled the area, a source of much of the world’s opium.
The operation is expected to be the biggest push since President Barack Obama announced a new surge of US troops in Afghanistan and one of the biggest since the 2001 invasion defeated the Taliban regime.
Up to 400 families have left Marjah, seeking shelter in Lashkar Gah and elsewhere, officials said, while those left were being told to stay put.
“Leaflets are being dropped over Marjah, containing the message ‘Don’t shelter the Taliban in your homes, don’t allow the Taliban in your areas, the troops are coming to help you. We will bring peace. Live in peace and comfort’,” said provincial spokesperson Daud Ahmadi.
The same message is being broadcast on local radio, he said.
“Local people are also being encouraged to inform Afghan troops about Taliban IEDs,” he said, referring to improvised explosive devises, the insurgents’ main weapon in their fight to topple the Western-backed government.
Troops massed around Marjah have spent recent days sweeping roads and fields for IEDs, which cause huge losses among both troops and civilians.
While the offensive is expected to begin soon, troops have not yet entered the town, Ahmadi said.
Marines holding a strategic junction outside Marjah are using loudspeakers to reinforce the appeal for residents to stay indoors and not to shelter militants, an Agence France-Presse photographer on the scene said.
The shouted messages say that the Marines and Afghan security forces have come to rid the area of “terrorists”.
Resistance
But the Taliban have vowed to stay and fight, with spokesperson Yousuf Ahamdi, saying: “We’re fully prepared to fight them if they enter the town.
“We’re firing rockets and other heavy weapons on them,” he said.
“They have not reacted so far. We have laid mines. We have experience from previous operations, we’ll be fighting them,” he said by telephone from an undisclosed location.
One Marjah resident who fled accused the Taliban of intimidating residents and stopping them from leaving.
Abdul Samad said he moved his 13-member family from village to village to outwit militants trying to force people to stay.
“I tricked the Taliban, moving from one village to the other until I got out of the area,” he said after arriving in Lashkar Gah early on Friday.
“There are large numbers of Taliban all over the place,” he said, adding: “Sometimes we could see Taliban laying mines on the roads.”
The IEDs are buried just beneath the road surface and detonated by remote control, according to military intelligence officials.
An IED killed a British soldier on foot patrol in Helmand on Thursday, taking to 66 the number of foreign soldiers to die in Afghanistan so far this year.
Military planners and Nato officials say IEDs will be their biggest challenge in the Marjah offensive, which aims to clear the area of Taliban so the Afghan government can establish institutional control.
Mark Sedwill, Nato’s senior civilian representative, said this week that Afghan police and army will move in immediately after the military phase of the operation is complete, in a bid to ensure insurgents do not return. — AFP