Author: By Rosamond Hutt, Press Association
US-led airstrikes began as dawn broke in the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in
Helmand Province where up to 1,000 insurgents are believed to be holed up.
Read more on UK troops engaged in Operation Moshtarak…
Author: By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent
Since then he has returned home, got married, had a baby and volunteered to go
back with the next brigade deploying to the frontline, an example of how the
Afghan war has become the defining feature in a British soldier?s life.
The aim is to retake Marjah, an area in Helmand which passed into Taliban hands several years ago. A few preliminary probing actions have taken place around the enclave. Nato aircraft have been dropping leaflets on the town telling the civilian population to leave, asking the insurgents to lay down their arms and join a reconciliation process.
Read more on Nato’s show of force is also about winning hearts and minds…
Author: By Kim Sengupta
This was the first big offensive since the announcement that 30,000 more US troops were to be dispatched to what is now very much Barack Obama’s war. The mission had been postponed while intense political debate on the reinforcements took place in Washington. What happens here, and in other operations which will unfold in the coming months, will determine whether the surge, the strategy which curbed the ferocious violence in Iraq, has a chance of success in Afghanistan.
Read more on Marines launch their first post-surge operation…
Author: By Kim Sengupta in Naw Zad, Helmand
General Sir David Richards told The Independent: ?The irony is that while the
Army has huge popular support from the nation, for which we are immensely
grateful, the war we are fighting on the nation?s behalf does not benefit
from the same support.?
Author: By David Usborne, US Editor
Mr Obama was yesterday visiting Fort Hood Army base, for a memorial service for the 13 people killed in last Thursday’s shooting rampage. The spokesman did not offer reporters covering the visit any more detail, and said that those reporting that a decision had already been made “don’t have the slightest idea what they’re talking about”.
Author: By Kim Sengupta in Kabul
The announcement that the 200th member of the British forces has been killed
in combat in the conflict ? the seventh to die in four days ? came on
Remembrance Sunday with public figures in the UK questioning the further
involvement and yet another opinion poll showing a majority want troops to
be pulled out.
Read more on US likely to dispatch 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan…
Author: By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
The allegations against Ahmed Wali Karzai, set out yesterday in The New York Times and attributed to current and former US officials, paint a picture of a shadowy potentate and powerbroker with a finger in every pie, whose fief is the south of the country, heartland of the Taliban insurgency.
Author: By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent
The decision to deploy up to 1,000 more troops is likely to be made after a cabinet meeting on the conflict within the next seven days. Ministers had indicated that no more forces would be deployed while a shortfall remained in providing enough armoured vehicles for protection against roadside bombs, which have claimed 80 per cent of recent British lives lost.
Read more on Chastened Brown set to send more troops to Afghanistan…
Author: By Julius Cavendish in Kabul
Two Afghan soldiers were also killed amid fierce fighting, which lasted all day and was punctuated by strikes from planes and Apache gunships. Separately a US soldier died from wounds suffered from a bomb.
Read more on Mountain raid by Taliban leaves eight American soldiers dead…
