Taliban 'using human shields' in assault

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.

About 15,000 Nato and Afghan troops are taking part in the offensive around Marjah, which has an estimated 80,000 inhabitants and was the largest town in southern Helmand province under Taliban control. Nato hopes to rush in aid and public services as soon as the town is secured to try to win the loyalty of the population.

With the assault in its fifth day, insurgents are firing at Afghan troops from inside or next to compounds where women and children appear to have been ordered to stand on a roof or in a window, said General Mohiudin Ghori, the brigade commander for Afghan troops in Marjah.

“Especially in the south of Marjah, the enemy is fighting from compounds where soldiers can very clearly see women or children on the roof or in a second-floor or third-floor window,” Gen Ghori said.

“They are trying to get us to fire on them and kill the civilians.”

The Marjah offensive is the biggest joint operation since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan and is a major test of a retooled Nato strategy to focus on protecting civilians, rather than killing insurgents.

Gen Ghori said troops have made choices either not to fire at the insurgents with civilians nearby or had to target and advance much more slowly in order to distinguish between militants and civilians as they go.

Even with such caution on both the Nato and Afghan side, civilians have been killed. Nato has confirmed 15 civilian deaths in the operation. Afghan rights groups say at least 19 have been killed.

In northern Marjah today, US Marines fanned out through poppy fields, dirt roads and side alleys to take control of a broader stretch of area from insurgents as machine gun fire rattled in the distance.

The Marines found several compounds which had primitive drawings on their walls depicting insurgents blowing up tanks or helicopters, a sign that Afghan troops say revealed strong Taliban support in the neighbourhood.

A day earlier, Marines and Afghan forces moving by land from the north succeeded in linking up with US units which have faced nearly constant Taliban attack in the four days since they were dropped by helicopter into this insurgent stronghold in southern Afghanistan.

The link-up between the two Marine rifle companies and their Afghan army partners will enable the US to expand its control in Marjah, about 380 miles (610km) south-west of Kabul.

A top Taliban commander, Mullah Abdul Razaq Akhund, dismissed the offensive as Nato propaganda and said on the group’s website that Marjah was militarily insignificant.

Four Nato service members have been killed in the Marjah operation. An American and a Briton were killed on Saturday, while two others whose nationalities were not identified were killed yesterday. One of those died in a bomb attack and another from gunfire. One Afghan soldier also died yesterday, Afghan officials said.

US officials said Taliban resistance in Marjah seemed more disorganised yesterday than in previous days, when small teams of insurgents swarmed around Marine and Afghan army positions firing rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).

Troops are encountering less fire from mortars and RPGs than at the start of the assault, suggesting that the insurgents may have depleted some of their reserves or that the heavier weapons have been hit, Gen Ghori said.

Nevertheless, the Taliban have not given up. Insurgent snipers hiding in haystacks in poppy fields have exchanged fire with Marines and Afghan troops in recent days as they swept south.

Insurgents tried but failed to shoot down an Osprey aircraft with rocket-propelled grenades as Cobra attack helicopters fired missiles at Taliban positions, including a machine gun bunker.

On Sunday, Nato said two US missiles struck a house on the outskirts of Marjah, killing 12 people, half of them children. Afghan officials said three Taliban fighters were in the house at the time. Three other civilians were killed in separate incidents.

Nato first said the missiles went 300 metres off target and hit the house. Yesterday, however, British Major General Nick Carter, commander of Nato forces in the south, told reporters in London via a video link that the rockets hit the intended target.

Violence and Nato strikes have continued elsewhere in the country.

In neighbouring Kandahar province, four Afghan policemen were killed and four others wounded when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb yesterday, the Afghan Interior Ministry said.

And in the east, Nato said it killed more than a dozen insurgents in an air strike near the Pakistani border.