LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan — US Marines returned to Afghanistan’s volatile Helmand on Saturday, where American troops faced heated fighting until NATO’s combat mission ended in 2014, as embattled Afghan security forces struggle to beat back the resurgent Taliban.
The deployment of some 300 Marines to the poppy-growing southern province came one day after the militants announced the launch of their “spring offensive,” and as the Trump administration seeks to craft a new strategy in Afghanistan.
Commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan General John Nicholson attended a handover ceremony marking the return of the prestigious force, the first Marines in Afghanistan since 2014, a photographer said.
Part of a regular troop rotation announced in January under the Obama administration, they will arrive in stages, eventually numbering some 300 who will take part in NATO’s train, assist and advise mission.
Helmand for years was the centerpiece of the US and British military intervention in Afghanistan — only for it to slip deeper into a quagmire of instability.
The Taliban effectively control or contest 10 of Helmand’s 14 districts, blighted by a huge opium harvest that helps fund the insurgency.
Around 30,000 people fled fighting in the province in 2016, mostly seeking refuge in provincial capital Lashkar Gah, with the city at times practically besieged.
The US has some 8,400 troops in Afghanistan with about another 5,000 from NATO allies, mostly taking part in the training mission.
Pentagon chief Jim Mattis warned of “another tough year” in Afghanistan when he visited Kabul this week as part of the Trump administration’s review of Afghan policy.
Nicholson has called for a few thousand more troops to help break the “stalemate.”
Mirza Mohammad Yarmand, a retired Afghan general based in Kabul, was optimistic.
“If the Afghan forces and the US Marines jointly fight the phenomenon of the terrorism in southern Helmand, we will have tangible results,” he said.
The Marines were among the first US forces sent to Afghanistan after the 2001 terror attacks in the United States. Several thousand were deployed in Helmand, the deadliest province for US and British forces, where they engaged in bitter combat with the Taliban insurgency.
The US is also targeting Daesh (the so-called IS) in Afghanistan, earlier this month dropping its largest non-nuclear bomb on the terror group’s hideouts.
The strike sparked questions over its use against a group that is not considered as big a threat as the Taliban.
Two US troops were killed on Wednesday while fighting Daesh militants near the blast-site in eastern Nangarhar province in an incident potentially involving friendly fire, the Pentagon has said, adding an investigation has been launched. — AFP
