The first wave of Marines and Afghan soldiers swooped into the farming community of Marja about 2 a.m. Saturday local time (4:30 p.m. Eastern), their CH-53 Super Stallion transport helicopters landing amid clouds of dust on fallow fields. As the troops, weighed down with ammunition and supplies, lumbered out and set up defensive positions, AV-8B Harrier fighter jets and AH-1[W] Cobra attack helicopters circled overhead in the moonless sky.
Two more waves of troops touched down over the following 90 minutes near other strategic locations in Marja. Insurgents mounted scattered attacks on the coalition forces in the initial hours of the operation, causing no significant casualties.
At sunrise, hundreds more Marines and Afghan soldiers entered the area by land, using mobile bridges to ford irrigation canals — built by U.S. engineers more than 50 years ago — that have served as defensive moats for the Taliban. Heavily armored mine-sweeping trucks and specially outfitted tanks worked to carve a path through a belt of makeshift bombs buried around the town.
(Not only Marines and Afghans, but I believe the Royal Welsh Regiment is also knee-deep in the fight, reprising an old partnership that dates back to the Boxer Rebellion.)
This battle will, as BGen Nicholson stated, be a turning point in RC-South. And if the Afghan government can seize the opportunity and exploit the gains we win for them, it will be a turning point in the campaign.
Go get ‘em!
