This is where we should have stayed the whole time.
NAWA, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Thousands of U.S. Marines stormed deep into Taliban territory in an Afghan river valley on Thursday, launching the biggest military offensive of Barack Obama's presidency.
The Marines say Operation Khanjar, or Strike of the Sword, will be decisive and is intended to seize virtually the entire lower Helmand River valley, the heartland of the Taliban insurgency and the world's biggest opium poppy producing region.
In swiftly seizing the valley and holding ground there, U.S. commanders hope to accomplish within hours what overstretched NATO troops had failed to achieve over several years, and help secure Afghanistan for an August 20 presidential election after years of stalemate.
"The intent is to go big, go strong and go fast, and by doing so we are going to save lives on both sides," Brigadier-General Larry Nicholson, commander of the Marines in southern Afghanistan, told his staff before the operation.
WAVES OF HELICOPTERS
Waves of helicopters landed Marines in the early morning darkness throughout the valley, a crescent of opium poppy and wheat fields criss-crossed by canals and dotted with mud-brick homes. Entrenched fighters defied NATO forces there for years.
Marines also dismounted from armored convoys before dawn and fanned out into the fields alongside the river as the sun rose.
About 4,000 Marines surged forward and thousands more were mobilized to assist them in one of the biggest operations by foreign troops in Afghanistan since the 1989 Soviet withdrawal.
The 10,000 Marines in Helmand Province, 8,500 of whom arrived in the past two months, form the biggest wave of an escalation ordered by Obama. The U.S. president has declared the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan to be America's main foreign threat.
Large areas of Helmand have been outside government control. It produces the biggest share of Afghanistan's opium crop, which accounts for 90 percent of the world's heroin.
Launching such a bold operation carries great risk. A protracted, bloody fight could erode support for the war in the United States, among its NATO allies and Afghans.
Taliban fighters have had years to reinforce positions among the valley's irrigation ditches and canals but U.S. and NATO commanders hope a rapid, decisive victory in Helmand will prove the tipping point of the war.
"We're going to seize the population from the Taliban and never let them go," Marine Lieutenant-Colonel Christian Cabaniss told his troops before they set out in armored convoys.
This stuff makes my dick hard
Member #: 27357
Registered: 12/17/2003
Posted:
397
Name:
Christopher H.
Occupation:
Sweep/Ingress,Splicing
Location:
All over the West
Personal:
late 50s
Experience:
~30 years
There is 1 reply to this message
