U.S. troops close Taliban escape route before attack

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.

"They're trying to draw us in," said Capt. Joshua Winfrey, 30, of Tulsa, Okla., commander of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines.

Up to 1,000 militants are believed holed up in Marjah, a key Taliban logistics base and center of the lucrative opium poppy trade. But the biggest threats are likely to be the land mines and bombs hidden in the roads and fields of the farming community, 380 miles southwest of Kabul.

Although the precise date for the attack has not been revealed, U.S. officials have signaled for weeks they planned to seize Marjah, a town of about 80,000 people in Helmand province and the biggest community in southern Afghanistan under Taliban control.

NATO officials said the goal is to seize the town quickly and re-establish Afghan government authority, bringing public services in hopes of winning support of the townspeople. Hundreds of Afghan soldiers were to join U.S. Marines in the attack to emphasize the Afghan role in the operation.

A Taliban spokesman dismissed the significance of Marjah, saying the NATO operation was "more propaganda than military necessity."

Nevertheless, the spokesman, Mohammed Yusuf, said on the Taliban Web site that the insurgents would strike the attackers with explosives and hit-and-run tactics, according to a summary by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant Internet traffic.

In preparation for the offensive, a U.S.-Afghan force led by the U.S. Army's 5th Stryker Brigade, based at Fort Lewis, 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 soldiers fired colored smoke grenades to show each other that they were friendly forces.

U.S. and Afghan forces have 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 seen.

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 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 forces.

To combat the mines around Marjah, Marines planned to use their new 72-ton Assault Breacher Vehicles, which use metal blows or fire rockets to detonate them at a safe distance.

On Thursday, Afghanistan's interior minister, Hanif Atmar, met with a group of tribal elders explaining the goals of the Marjah operation and asking for their support.

The elders told Atmar at the meeting in Lashkar Gah, the Helmand provincial capital about 20 miles northeast of Marjah, that their support depended on how the operation was carried out and whether a large number of civilians were killed or injured.

As the Marines waited for battle, they received their first mail delivery since arriving in the Marjah area.

Some Marines burned their letters after reading them because they didn't want them to fall into the wrong hands if they lost them in the fighting.