Food and water runs out for Marjah civilians

Kim Sengupta, The Independant

For Afghans who didn't get out before Operation Moshtarak began, the attack is taking its toll. Kim Sengupta reports from Helmand

US Marines and a Danish tank on the outskirts of Marjah yesterday

As desperate residents of Marjah warned that food and water were running out yesterday, the Operation Moshtarak endgame got under way with Nato and Afghan government forces attempting to force their way into one of the last remaining Taliban enclaves.

The need for supplies in the former Taliban stronghold is becoming increasingly urgent for those who did not leave town when the fighting began. But for now, the US-led troops are focused on what they hope will be a final battle with the insurgents in the town, who repeatedly attempted to block their path yesterday.

The coalition faced ambushes among the narrow alleyways and roadside bombs on the edges of a two-square-mile stretch on the western edge of the combat zone. Warplanes, helicopter-gunships and unmanned drones circled above, but were being used only sparingly because, US commanders claimed, the militants were using civilians as shields.

Lt-Col Brian Christmas, commander of 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, said: "They are squeezed. It looks like they want to stay and fight, but they can always drop their weapons and slip away."

Around 600 Afghan policemen from the Public Protection Force, the newly established gendarmerie, were waiting to move into the remainder of Marjah, as the projected first step towards establishing Afghan government control. General Mohieddin Ghouri, the head of the Afghan army in Helmand province, said: "They are in Marjah centre, in the bazaar. We are busy carrying out the clean-up and search operations" with a view to eventually setting up police posts there.

But despite that progress, Western officials face a major humanitarian problem in the aftermath of the assault – a time that US Nato commander General Stanley McChrystal has predicted will be far more challenging than the fighting phase.

Marjah residents, speaking on the telephone, described the hardship they faced. Abdul Ghias, 53, said, "Most people cannot get hold of medicine or food, and people cannot work their farms." Yaqub Rashid, a shopkeeper, said: "We are too scared to go out because of all the firing going on. We were also worried about stepping on bombs that have been planted. Neighbours are sharing food with each other, but we are now facing a problem. Many of us did not run away and stayed behind to protect our homes. But we need help."

There has been a massive airlift of food, water and fuel to areas recaptured from the Taliban, with the British Joint Helicopter Force based at Camp Bastion moving around 100 tonnes of supplies for troops and civilians.

The commanding officer, Lt-Col Mike Smith, said: "After the insertion of forces, we have had to ensure that there was an uninterrupted flow of supplies. We have also helped with infrastructure building, such as dropping a bridge over a canal in the Nad-e-Ali area."

He added that an absence of resistance on the ground was making the process easier. Last week, Maj-Gen Nick Carter, the British commander of Isaf (International Security and Assistance Force) in the south of the country, said it would take around 30 days to clear insurgents from targeted areas. Twelve Nato soldiers and between 15 and 21 civilians have died.

RAF Chinooks in Afghanistan

1310 Flight Royal Air Force Chinooks of Joint Helicopter Command (Afghanistan) are providing essential support for International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operations in Helmand Province and across Afghanistan

British troops kill Taliban bomb mastermind - Telegraph

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent

Following an intelligence tip-off the mullah was tracked by surveillance aircraft and killed in an attack by an Apache helicopter.

John Hutton, the Defence Secretary said the attack was a "significant blow" to the Taliban as the bomb-maker was at "the heart of the insurgents' attempts to kill and injure British troops" and "brought misery to innocent Afghan civilians". Four British soldiers were killed last month.

The Ministry of Defence said the Taliban commander was behind a suicide bomb attack that killed Sgt Ben Ross, 34, and Cpl Kumar Pun, 30 in the town of Gereshk in which 19 civilians, including women and children died.

He was also behind an attack last month that killed 13 Afghan police and civilians and one on the Helmand Police Headquarters in March that killed nine Afghan policemen and two civilians.

Following a surveillance operation, that might have used special forces and voice recognition technology, Mullah Mansur was positively identified as a "high value target" in the early hours of Monday in an isolated area near Nahr e Saraj, north east of Lashkar Gah.

The attack is also believed to have killed and injured a number of accomplices of the bomb mastermind.

Lt Col Nick Richardson, the spokesman for Task Force Helmand, said British forces conducted "a successful precision strike against the most dangerous man in central Helmand".

"The attacks Mullah Mansur helped plan and execute have probably killed or wounded hundreds of people, and most of them have been either Afghan civilians or police. This operation was the culmination of months of effort and the strike itself was carefully coordinated and checked to ensure there were no civilians in the area."

Mullah Mansur was known to have strong links to insurgent commanders from the Baluch tribe in the south and acted as the link between the insurgency in the south and central Helmand, the MoD said.

The news comes after the head of the military's helicopters said Apache pilots are operating at "maximum stretch" in Afghanistan due to a significant shortfall in aircrew.

The Apache force, which became operational when British troops entered Helmand province in 2006, is currently 20 per cent short of its full complement of 50 pilots.

Rear Admiral Tony Johnstone-Burt, head of Joint Helicopter Command, said "We are at maximum stretch and there are hotspots in certain areas."

"Apaches have been committed with more pilots than we have got," he told the Commons Defence Committee.

The shortages had reached the point that the RAF and Navy had provided helicopter crews to qualify on the Apache.