Afghanistan’s president has urged Nato to do more to protect civilians during combat operations to secure Marjah, a southern Taliban stronghold and scene of the biggest allied ground assault of the eight-year war.

Elite US Marine reconnaissance teams were dropped behind Taliban lines by helicopter today as coalition forces stepped up operations in Afghanistan to break resistance in the besieged insurgent stronghold of Marjah.

Troops raised the Afghan flag in the bullet-ridden main market of the Taliban’s southern stronghold of Marjah today as fighting continued elsewhere in town.

Taliban fighters are increasingly using civilians as human shields in the assault on the southern town of Marjah, an Afghan official said today as military squads resumed painstaking house-to-house searches in the Taliban stronghold.

The US Army launched a major operation today in support of a planned US-Afghan attack on the largest Taliban-controlled town in southern Afghanistan.