A U.S. infantryman with Delta Company 4th Brigade fight team, 2-508, 82nd parachute battalion Regiment, aims his arms during a unit in the Arghandab hollow in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, Feb 23, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Baz Ratner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan will launch a new infantry operation after this year to get full carry out of Kandahar, the former "capital city" of the Taliban, a comparison U.S. central pronounced on Friday.
The tip U.S. ubiquitous in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, had already flagged his idea to aim Kandahar following an offensive, right away in the third week, to retake carry out of the Taliban construction of Marjah in adjacent Helmand province.
"If the altogether idea for 2010 in Afghanistan is to retreat the transformation (of the Taliban) ... afterwards we think we"ve got to get to Kandahar this year," pronounced the comparison Obama administration department department department official, vocalization on condition of anonymity.
Militants have over the past year done extraordinary gains in the area around Kandahar, the hearth of the Taliban movement. Reclusive Taliban personality Mullah Omar ruled Afghanistan from there prior to U.S.-led forces invaded in 2001.
McChrystal described the city in his comment of the fight last Aug as the "key geographic objective" of the Quetta Shura Taliban, the main coterie led by Mullah Omar.
The U.S. central was charity an comment of the descent in Marjah, that the administration department department department views as key credentials for the potentially bigger conflict of Kandahar, Afghanistan"s second-largest city.
TEST CASE FOR BIG PRIZE
Marjah is one of the greatest operations in the some-more than eight-year-old Afghan war. It is additionally an early exam of President Barack Obama"s plan to supplement 30,000 some-more infantry to win carry out of Taliban strongholds and in the future send them to Afghan authority.
"The approach to see at Marjah is that it is the tactical preface to incomparable some-more extensive operations after this year in Kandahar city," the administration department department department central said.
"Bringing extensive race security to Kandahar city is unequivocally the centerpiece of operations this year and thus Marjah is the prelude," he said.
The British commander in chief of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan pronounced last week that NATO forces would brush toward Kandahar over the subsequent 6 months.
On Thursday, Afghan authorities lifted the Afghan dwindle over Marjah to weigh the handover of carry out to the supervision from NATO infantry led by U.S. Marines.
The central pronounced infantry commanders on the belligerent believed it would take multiform weeks nonetheless to transparent the superfluous pockets of insurgency in and around Marjah.
"We are somewhere in between transparent and hold and that is flattering most on track. What is going to be some-more severe than the clearing routine will be the construction process," he said.
He concurred U.S. and Afghan security forces would not primarily have the certitude of Marjah"s residents.
"It is not so most a make a difference of a earthy competition about who controls the weapons, it"s a subject of who controls the certainty of the people. That will usually come after we are means to deliver," he said.
Washington hopes the ultimate descent will decisively spin the transformation in a fight that commanders contend has been going the approach of the Taliban.
Under Obama"s new strategy, NATO and Afghan security forces are to secure race centers opposite Afghanistan so that the supervision can move in.
(Additional stating by Caren Bohan and Adam Entous)
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