KABUL (AFP) — US Marines have faced "continuous resistance" from the Taliban since an operation began two weeks ago to clear out a key militant stronghold in Afghanistan, a leader of the unit said Wednesday.
US Marines and British troops under NATO command launched the operation in late April in Garmser district in southern Helmand province, a key battleground for the Taliban-led insurgency and an opium-producing centre.
"We're seeing a continuous resistance," said Lieutenant Colonel Kent W. Hayes, the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit's second-in-command in Afghanistan.
"They are consistently engaging us," he said, but added that "the bottom line is: When we fight them, we defeat them."
Hayes said Garmser was a "planning, staging and logistic hub" for the rebels.
He refused to comment on militant casualties in the operation, saying it was not policy to give figures.
But Hayes did not deny a statement Tuesday by Helmand province governor Gulab Mangal that over 150 militants, many of them Al-Qaeda-linked "foreign fighters," had been killed in the past week in Garmser, which borders Pakistan.
Hayes also said his troops had disrupted Taliban logistics networks in Garmser.
"We are noticing that we have influenced that area greatly and we have seen that they are starting to have trouble reinforcing and getting arms and things like that," he said.
Garmser is said to be a gateway for fresh rebel fighters and supplies coming into Afghanistan, where the Taliban-led insurgency is fiercest along areas bordering Pakistan.
Some rebels are believed to have their first encounters with international troops in Garmser before moving north.
Elsehwere in Helmand, two Afghan policemen were killed when their patrol was attacked by Taliban rebels in Marja district, said provincial police chief, Mohammad Hussein Andiwal.
The police chief said villagers reported that 10 rebels were also killed in the four-hour-long gunbattle, "but we didn't see their bodies."
In another incident in the northeastern province of Kunduz, unknown gunmen shot dead a teacher, said provincial police chief Ayoub Salangi.
"A teacher who had spoken against suicide bombings in a village gathering was shot dead by unknown men. We don't know who has killed him," Salangi told AFP.
There are about 70,000 international soldiers in Afghanistan helping the government fight the Taliban-led insurgency and rebuild the country. The 2,400-strong Marine Expeditionary Unit deployed in March to help NATO forces over the summer, traditionally when the insurgency flares.
A separate US-led coalition, including special forces, has in the past week reported significant Taliban casualties in Garmser.
The Taliban were removed from government in 2001 in a US-led invasion launched when the extremist regime did not hand over their Al-Qaeda allies following the 9/11 attacks.
The operation forced Taliban and Al-Qaeda across the border into Pakistan, where Afghan and US officials claim they have safe havens from which they can plot their bloody insurgency in Afghanistan.
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