Marines Engage Taliban on Edge of Marjah

By: Tucker Reals
Topics: Afghanistan

(CBS)

U.S. Marines at forward positions are continuing their slow, dangerous advance Friday toward the heart of a Taliban-held town in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province.

CBS News correspondent Mandy Clark, embedded with a unit of Marines on the frontline (at left), reports that the long-expected operation to force the militants out of Marjah has yet to begin. But the fight isn't waiting.

The Marines came under direct small-arms fire Friday from Taliban militants entrenched on the agricultural town's outskirts.

Clark reports that the ever-changing frontline remains a few miles from the center of Marjah.

Machine gun fire peppered at least one U.S. military vehicle and forced the Marines to seek cover before returning fire. There were no American casualties reported among the unit as of 6 a.m. Eastern time.

At last contact, the unit of Marines with whom Clark is embedded was about to advance forward and try and secure the compound on the town's edge from which the militants were taking potshots.

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U.S. commanders expect to encounter between 400 and 1,000 fighters in Marjah once the offensive begins in earnest, but skirmishes like Friday's, which have gone on for several days, show the Taliban have set up their own positions encircling the town.

On Thursday, U.S. Marines hooked up with Army soldiers on Marjah's outskirts, completely surrounding the town in an attempt to cut off supply and escape routes.

American commanders have said the battle for Marjah — the last Taliban-held town in the strategic opium farming Helmand River Valley — may be the largest offensive of the nine-year war.

The Taliban propaganda machine, however, has dismissed the town as insignificant in the grand scale of the war, with a spokesman claiming online it will be defended, but not a devastating blow if lost to the Americans and their NATO and Afghan allies.

Tucker Reals
Tucker Reals is a senior news editor and overnight site editor for CBSNews.com, based at CBS News' London bureau.

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by cutthecheese February 18, 2010 12:33 PM EST: I believe it is time to get this over with. take off the kid gloves and do what we gotta do. Go big or go home. With out us there they will just go back to killing one another as they have always done and be much happier doing it.; Reply to this comment


by msjb1 February 13, 2010 11:33 AM EST: They are good at hiding with honest familys and living among the regular citizens they hide in civilan clothes they are not even brave enough or man enough to wear a uniform for their cause, they are chicken **** punks that hide behind womens skirts, they are just wimps. Then they wimp out on us because we are unfare using drone aircraft what we really need to do is to bomb them like in viet nam bomb after bomb after bomb, they would get tired of that. We are just to easy on them punks, they put their own people on the front line without even a fork to fight with, and then they claim we ain't fair. I feel bad that innocent people have to get killed but fighting them like we are, it will never end. Heck they have been fighting since they were cavemen, **** some of them are still cavemen that really live in caves.; Reply to this comment

by msjb1 February 13, 2010 11:13 AM EST

why don't we bring in them big ole b-52 bombers and drop bombs there for 2 or 3 days that should get rid of a bunch of them

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by finkfurst February 13, 2010 12:00 PM EST: You don't got the faintest idea about the scale or the logistics, do you? You're just another typical violent idiot Yank.


by IzThatSoBad February 15, 2010 7:02 PM EST: he yanking your chain


by pmw8782 February 12, 2010 4:52 PM EST: This reporter happens to be embedded with my husbands unit specifically. I can guarantee you the fighters are not poorly armed, and the Marine unit is not flying above the action in a helicopter, but on the ground sleeping in frozen foxholes. From my stance, reading her reports, I can only hope that she does not see any killing... those men are my husband, my friends.; Reply to this comment


by scootervanneuter February 12, 2010 1:56 PM EST: Here's another good article on the Talibans plans to fight a guerrilla war:

http://peacemoonbeam.typepad.com/scooters_report/2010/02/taliban-vows-new-style-guerrilla-warfare.html; Reply to this comment


by wyodutch February 12, 2010 9:59 AM EST: As soon as Mandy Clark can connect the dots and ramp things up, we'll be seeing boots on the ground and assets deployed in a non-symmetrical situation.; Reply to this comment

by wyodutch February 12, 2010 8:56 AM EST

"Giggle" (the sound of burping and flattulance in the background). "Hi America, I'm Mandy Clark right here at the 50-yard line. Over there is "the enemy" (pre-recorded boos and hisses)... a massive horde of at least 400 of the bas-addeest volunteers this side of Hoboken.".
.
"Over here, we have 30,000 NATO troops (pre-recorded cheers and applause) hunkered down in armored vehicles, chowing down on beer and pizza, using the Koran as napkins." (pre-recorded howls of laughter).
.
(Sound of a horn in the background) "Okay... here we go. The three minute warning. In round one, 400 United States Coast Guardsmen will charge the enemy positions, trying to frighten them out of their foxholes with shrieks of "Semper Paratus"."
.
"In round two, if there are any enemy left, the NATO coach will be sending in 400 National Guard clerk-typists from Roanoke, Virginia." (Pre-recorded cheers and applause).
.
"Meanwhile, let's take a few minutes to thank our sponsors for bringing this patriotic spectacle to your living room."

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by U_S_Drug_Addict February 12, 2010 8:59 AM EST: This war brought to you by the letter A, and the number 10

by U_S_Drug_Addict February 12, 2010 8:55 AM EST

This war is unwinnable, the real war is of the mind.
If Afghanistan were more secular the Religious Conservatives in the region would have less influence over the young.
Separation of Mosque and state is what is needed

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by cbs_tom February 12, 2010 9:48 AM EST: "If Afghanistan were more secular the Religious Conservatives in the region"
by U_S_Drug_Addict February 12, 2010 8:55 AM EST
You may have done this inadvertant, but by labeling them conservatives, you continue to demonize anyone with a conservative point of view. The terms liberal and conservative have been so skewed in the past 20years that no one truly knows what either are. The soviets where leftist communist, yet under todays definitiion, would be considered connservatives.


by U_S_Drug_Addict February 12, 2010 3:02 PM EST: Tom, Conservatives of all faiths are guilty.

by robinspp February 12, 2010 8:53 AM EST

Some idiots are talking about success. What is success? Fighting against some civilians and wining, is it success?

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by cbs_tom February 12, 2010 9:42 AM EST: "Some idiots are talking about success. What is success? Fighting against some civilians and wining, is it success"?
by robinspp February 12, 2010 8:53 AM EST

Yes, civilians with weapons.


by IndepTex20 February 12, 2010 10:08 AM EST: In my view success would be something on the order of NATO troops (read american military) killing all 1k taliban and leaving nothing standing taller than 3 feet in that hellhole...........then set it all on fire and walk away!


by robinspp February 12, 2010 8:49 AM EST: Human beings do not have any value in Afghanistan. The atrocity is continued by NATO forces, the cost of that is the killing of innocent civilians including women and children.; Reply to this comment