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MARJAH, Afghanistan : US-led troops were inching closer to declaring victory over a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan as a senior commander said Wednesday militant resistance had fallen dramatically.
Residents of the Marjah area in Helmand province were streaming out in search of food and other supplies, risking heavily-mined roads, humanitarian workers said.
Around 15,000 US, Afghan and NATO forces have been fighting to capture the area from the Taliban and drug lords, in the first test of a US-led troop surge battling to end the eight-year Afghan war.
Taliban snipers and booby-trap bombs had hampered progress in the battle for Marjah and Nad Ali on the poppy-growing plain of the central Helmand River valley.
But US Marines commander Brigadier General Larry Nicholson said resistance had dwindled to almost nought.
"We had 39 contacts on day two. We didn't have a single one on day nine," he told AFP during a battlefield tour on day 11 of the offensive.
Nicholson was speaking in Marjah after entering the township with US and Afghan troops.
At the main Baraki Naw market, there was little sign of the fierce fighting reported earlier in the week, said an AFP photographer on the scene.
The assault is the first phase of Operation Mushtarak or "together" in Dari, and aimed to clear the Marjah and Nad Ali areas of Taliban control so the government can re-assert authority and the next phases -- consolidation and development -- can begin.
It is the first test of President Barack Obama's plan for speeding an end to the long war, with a comprehensive strategy for eradicating militants and instilling public confidence in the government's ability to bring security and civil services.
Elite police battalions have already moved into Marjah, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in an operational update, and would soon be reinforced.
NATO confirmed "fewer engagements with insurgents" in the past 24 hours, but added: "Despite this relative calm, IEDs and insurgent gunmen continue to pose a threat to civilians and security forces."
A market in Nad Ali had opened for the first time in 18 months, and a patrol base had become operational, it said in an update.
The vast number of hidden bombs planted by the Taliban were impeding those plans, however, it said.
Humanitarian organisations said that despite the risk presented by the improvised explosive devises (IEDs), desperate residents were flooding out of Marjah seeking help in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah and other areas.
Food prices have skyrocketed as supplies run out and the cost of transport had risen to the point that many people were leaving on foot, they said.
Provincial authorities say thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) have arrived Lashkar Gah, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of Marjah.
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"We have registered 3,739 families displaced to Lashkar Gah, Nad Ali, Nawa and Gereshk districts, and 2,841 families have received assistance," said Ghulam Farooq Noorzai, Helmand's director for refugees' affairs.
"Families are coming night and day, whenever they find time," he added.
The families average around five people but can be as large as 25.
Ajmal Samadi, head of the independent Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM), said people were leaving Marjah as conditions deteriorated.
"They are facing a serious lack of food and medicine, they hear that IDPs have been provided assistance elsewhere, and the military operation is extending," he said.
ARM confirmed 27 Marjah residents killed in the offensive -- six by the Taliban and 21 by foreign forces -- but said the figure could be over 30.
Southern Afghanistan, in particular Helmand and adjacent Kandahar province, have been the main focus of insurgent activity since the Taliban regime was overthrown in 2001.
Senior military commanders, including US General Stanley McChrystal who commands the 121,000 US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, have said Kandahar is in line for a major anti-insurgent offensive of its own.
- AFP /ls
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