Fighting With Taliban Eases in Marja Offensive

MARJA, Afghanistan, Feb. 16, 2010— -- The fight for Taliban's former stronghold Marja eased today as the Taliban resistance became more sporadic and less frequent.

"In the next several days we'll achieve our objectives and have full control of the city," said Lt.Col. Mark Dietz, Executive Officer for Regimental Combat Team 7. "The city is completely surrounded. We've seized key locations within the city bazaars, governance centers, key points in and out of the cities across the canals."

Capt. Abraham Sipe, Public Affairs Officer for the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, said, "From day three to day four we've seen insurgent resistance become much less organized." Sipe said Marines across the entire battle space were seeing a decrease in enemy contact.

On the fourth day of the Marja offensive, gun battles occasionally erupted in the center of the city and artillery strikes, at times heavy, could be heard from the northwest edge.

While on patrol Marines of the 2nd Amphibious Assault Battalion watched the Afghan military scour a neighborhood for possible Taliban insurgents who may have been trying to escape the city.

First Sgt. Damien DeMalteris, a 15-year veteran, looked things over through his rifle scope, and surmised that insurgents may be on the run after clearing operations farther north in the city flushed them out.

"What might be happening is that [Marines and Afghan soldiers] are clearing certain portions [and insurgents] are moving out of those portions, out of those areas that we've cleared, so they have to find different spots to occupy" said DeMalteris.

Perhaps the best news for U.S. military commanders is that the Afghan Army is stepping up to the task of taking on insurgents. Several of the biggest firefights and operations have involved Afghans. At the encampment here in the southern end of Marja the 300 men of the Afghan Kandak, or battalion, have refused offers of help from U.S. Marines as they've fanned out across the southern portion of the city.