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Afghan flag-raising in NATO offensive draws gunfire
Golnar Motevalli
MARJAH, Afghanistan
Sun Feb 14, 2010 2:04am EST
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MARJAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) - NATO and Afghan troops may have advanced in an offensive against the Taliban, but a small flag-raising ceremony at one of their compounds on Sunday drew gunfire, suggesting the militant group remains defiant.
World
U.S. Marines spearheaded one of NATO's biggest offensives against the Taliban in Afghanistan on Saturday, in an early test of U.S. President Barack Obama's troop surge policy.
Marines in helicopters landed in Marjah district, the last big Taliban stronghold in Helmand province, in the first hours of a NATO campaign to impose government control on rebel-held areas before U.S. forces start a planned 2011 drawdown.
"I have always dreamed of raising the Afghanistan flag over Marjah," said 22-year-old Afghan soldier Almast Khan, at the ceremony in a compound the Marines had taken over.
But suspected militants opened fire on Marines outside protecting the area.
The Taliban's overall Marjah district commander, Mullah Abdul Razaaq, said in an interview posted on the group's website that NATO had hyped up the strategic importance of Marjah "in order to cover up their past defeats."
Marjah has long been a breeding ground for insurgents and lucrative opium poppy cultivation, which Western countries say funds the insurgency.
The scale of the problem was glaring at the compound taken over by the Marines. Bags of drugs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars had been discovered, as were sacks of chemicals capable of producing 100 pounds of explosives, said Tim Coderre, a civilian adviser to Marine officials.
The 15,000-troop NATO operation was named Mushtarak, or "together," perhaps to highlight that NATO and Afghan forces were determined to work closely to restore stability to Afghanistan.
Whether the apparent early success can translate into a more permanent end to the insurgency may depend on the government's ability to ensure long-term political and economic stability.
Even if NATO deals a heavy blow to the Taliban in Helmand, militants on the U.S. hit list operate from other sanctuaries inside Pakistan or close to the border.
U.S.-allied Pakistan is reluctant to pursue them as it sees these groups as assets to counter the influence of rival India in Afghanistan.
Decades ago, the Marjah area was home to an Afghan-U.S. development project. Its canals, which criss-cross lush farmland, were built by the Americans.
(For more coverage of Afghanistan, double click on [nAFPAK])
(Additional reporting by Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Sugita Katyal)
(For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: here)
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