Kicking Taliban ass.
NEAR LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan — U.S. Army Soldiers launched a major operation Tuesday in support of a planned U.S.-Afghan attack on the largest Taliban-controlled town in southern Afghanistan.
NATO and Afghan officials, meanwhile, urged militants holding Marjah, where an offensive is expected, to lay down their arms and warned civilians there to “keep your heads down.”
About 400 U.S. troops from the 5th Stryker Brigade as well as 250 Afghan soldiers and their 30 Canadian trainers moved into positions northeast of the town.
No casualties were reported. Large plumes of smoke could be seen in the area, and reporters traveling with the U.S. unit could hear the distant rattle of 50-caliber machine gun fire and detonations from MK-19s, which fire 40 millimeter grenades from Stryker vehicles.
U.S. officials have not said when the main attack on the town of some 80,000 people will take place but have nonetheless heavily publicized plans to attack, causing hundreds of people to flee the opium-producing center in advance of the fighting.
On Tuesday, however, Taliban militants prevented townspeople from leaving Marjah, as families huddled inside their homes, witnesses said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,585200,00.html
More:
NEAR MARJAH, Afghanistan — U.S. and Afghan forces ringed the Taliban stronghold of Marjah on Thursday, sealing off escape routes and setting the stage for what is being described as the biggest offensive of the nine-year war.
Taliban defenders repeatedly fired rockets and mortars at units poised in foxholes along the edge of the town, apparently trying to lure NATO forces into skirmishes before the big attack.
……In preparation for the offensive, a U.S.-Afghan force led by the U.S. Army’s 5th Stryker Brigade moved south from Lashkar Gah and linked up Thursday with Marines on the northern edge of Marjah, closing off a main Taliban escape route. Marines and Army soldiers fired colored smoke grenades to show each other that they were friendly forces.
U.S. and Afghan forces have now finished their deployment along the main road in and out of Marjah, leaving the Taliban no way out except across bleak, open desert — where they could easily be spotted.
The Army’s advance was slowed as U.S. and Afghan soldiers cleared the thicket of mines and bombs hidden in canals and along the roads and fought off harassment attacks along the way by small bands of insurgents. Two U.S. attack helicopters fired Hellfire missiles at a compound near Marjah from where insurgents had been firing at the advancing Americans.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,585523,00.html
Read more at Michael Yon Online: http://www.michaelyon-online.com/michael-s-dispatches/
Hopefully, Obama will stay the hell out of the way and let the troops kill every last Islamofascist pig it takes, to end whatever interest they have in messing with the Great Satan.
sarg
STEP AWAY FROM THE BONG…….DO IT NOW…….
go back and read your last sentence……..
say NO to drugs……
you had to be on ’em when you wrote that.
butt neckid,
I get it. We know that it never happen. In spite of his bumbling, the military will continue to do the job they were sent for, and do it well. If he stepped aside it would make the job a hell of a lot easier.
SFC MAC