Operation Moshtarak Update: 27 Taliban Killed So Far, Pockets of Taliban Resistance In City of Marjah

The offensive in Helmand province of Afghanistan, code-named Operation Moshtarak and targeting the Taliban stronghold city of Marjah, has progressed well although now there appears to be some pockets in the city of Marjah that have Taliban jihadists fighting back fairly fiercely.
From the article at Financial Times:

US and Afghan forces came under fire in the town of Marjah on Sunday as pockets of Taliban fighters resisted a major Nato-led offensive to overrun one of their last strongholds in southern Afghanistan.
Nato commanders say key objectives have been seized since the launch on Saturday of one the biggest military operations in Afghanistan since 2001

“Now the fighting is going on, we can hear loud bangs and there is smoke and dust in the air,” said Abdul Jallil Khan, 42, a farmer who lives in Marjah, told the Financial Times by telephone. “The fighting is very hot it. It seems to me that Taliban are resisting.”

Provincial officials said more than 27 insurgents have been killed since the operation began. US military officials said on Sunday that the joint force had entered most of the town.

I would have to say this...those Taliban forces that have decided to stay in Marjah and "resist" ...well, I am confident that each and every one of them is going to end up dead. We have to remember something very important. The U.S. Marines that are inside of Marjah now are the same Marines that were in Iraq and the same ones that gutted the likes of Fallujah and Ramadi of al Qaeda in Iraq jihadis. Our Marines will OWN this fucking little town - this place is 1/10th the size of a Ramadi - the Taliban pockets will be discovered and identified quickly and these Marines will use the same precision they used in Iraq.

This is no longer a Taliban stronghold, believe me. It is an Afghan city teeming with U.S. Marines and it won't be long that it will be ours. And there will be a day soon when a bunch of Taliban jihadis are going to wish they had run away, like frightened children, days ago.

Taliban fighters resist Nato-led forces

US and Afghan forces came under fire in the town of Marjah on Sunday as pockets of Taliban fighters resisted a major Nato-led offensive to overrun one of their last strongholds in southern Afghanistan.
Nato commanders say key objectives have been seized since the launch on Saturday of one the biggest military operations in Afghanistan since 2001, although the deaths of a US marine and a British soldier pointed to the risks in the days ahead.

After initially encountering only sporadic resistance, journalists travelling with military units involved in “Operation Moshtarak” - which means “together” in the local Dari language - said the Taliban appeared to be intensifying their fight in several locations in Marjah on Sunday.
Reuters reported that insurgents opened fire on a ceremony to raise the Afghan flag at a position held by US marines on Sunday, designed to mark progress by US and Afghan forces pushing into the town.
The agency quoted Captain Ryan Sparks as comparing the intensity of the fighting to the US-led offensive against foreign and Iraqi al Qaeda militants in the town of Fallujah in 2004. “In Marjah, we're coming in from different locations and working toward the centre, so we're taking fire from all angles," Capt. Sparks said.
Residents also reported that the Taliban were fighting back against Nato and Afghan forces, whose advance was slowed by thousands of homemade booby traps and roadside bombs. The assault began before dawn on Saturday when US marines swooped into the city in helicopters.
“Now the fighting is going on, we can hear loud bangs and there is smoke and dust in the air,” said Abdul Jallil Khan, 42, a farmer who lives in Marjah, told the Financial Times by telephone. “The fighting is very hot it. It seems to me that Taliban are resisting.”
Provincial officials said more than 27 insurgents have been killed since the operation began. US military officials said on Sunday that the joint force had entered most of the town.
Mullah Abdul Razaq Akhond, a Taliban commander in the town, told the FT that his fighters had inflicted heavy casualties on foreign forces.
Some 15,000 US, UK and Afghan troops are taking part in the operation to secure Marjah and provide support in the surrounding areas of the district of Nad’e Ali.
The offensive is the biggest operation launched by the Nato-led force in Afghanistan since Barack Obama, the US president, ordered 30,000 extra forces to the country in December.
Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan, says the operation to seize Marjah represents an important step towards protecting an arc of territory housing 85 per cent of the population in the Taliban’s heartlands in the Kandahar and Helmand provinces.
In the past, the US or UK troops have driven away insurgents from certain southern areas only to watch them return after they leave.
In Marjah, the Nato-led force says it plans to stay long enough to help the Afghan government rapidly build up local administration as part of a broader plan to garner support for the government of Hamid Karzai, the president, ahead of a planned withdrawal by US forces in mid-2011.
The Nato-led force believes the Taliban has long used Marjah as a hub for planning attacks. Nato commanders say the town, surrounded by a network of irrigation ditches, is also a hub for opium trafficking. Nato commanders had warned of the impending offensive for weeks to avoid surprising the population and in the hope many insurgents would flee.
It remains unclear whether insurgents may regroup outside the town to launch the kind of roadside bomb attacks that have accounted for the majority of the casualties suffered by foreign troops in the past year. Although denying insurgents access to Marjah may help disrupt Taliban operations in Helmand Province, there is still little sign of Pakistan bowing to US entreaties to increase the pressure by shutting down havens used by Afghan insurgents on its territory.
Major General Nick Carter, the British head of the Nato-led force in southern Afghanistan, said shortly after the start of the operation on Saturday that it had gone “without a hitch.” He said: "We've caught the insurgents on the hoof.”