Militants fleeing a massive assault in southern Afghanistan aimed at clearing Taliban from their last stronghold are booby-trapping villages as they go, commanders said Sunday. Mines and militant sniper fire were slowing progress for US-led troops a day after they stormed Marjah, a town of 80,000 in the central Helmand River valley controlled for years by militants and drug traffickers.
Operation Mushtarak ("together" in Dari), the first major test of US President Barack Obama's new surge policy, kicked off before dawn Saturday when 15,000 US, British and Afghan soldiers stormed the Islamist stronghold.
Nato commanders hailed the success of the first day of its biggest operation since overthrowing the Taliban regime in 2001, saying troops took fire from Taliban snipers and found huge numbers of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed the combined forces had suffered two deaths - one British and one American - in the assault so far.
Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, commander of the Marines in southern Afghanistan, described day one of the operation as "good" and said "a couple of thousand Marines" were already in Marjah. But as he visited a Marines base on the north-eastern flank of the town, Nicholson said his men were meeting resistance from Taliban fighters.
"We took a lot of sniper fire," he said, adding that mine-sweeping vehicles "had blown up a lot of IEDs and have founds lots of IEDs with dead batteries". Afghan and British soldiers sweeping through villages in the Nad Ali area, where Marjah is also located, found IEDs buried by roadsides, in fields, hanging from trees, even embedded in walls, an Afghan army colonel said.
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