NEW YORK, Feb. 14 (NNN-APP) — The latest offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan will be tested by whether the area can be held once NATO troops clear it, the top U.S. commander was quoting as saying by The New York Times on Saturday.
In the past, troops have pulled out once the Taliban were gone, only to have militant fighters return eventually and begin the cycle over again. U.S. troops have called those clearances ?mowing the grass,? the newspaper said in a dispatch from Kabul.
Once the Taliban are rooted out of their stronghold in Marja, an Afghan town of 80,000, the objective of an offensive that began Friday, NATO plans to install Afghan officials and security forces backed by British and U.S. soldiers.
?We?ve got a government in a box, ready to roll in,? U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal told the Times.
The offensive is the first major one against the Taliban since President Barack Obama ordered an increase in the size of the U.S. force in Afghanistan.
Commanders say protecting civilians is now more important than killing Taliban.
?The population is not the enemy,? Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, who commands U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan, told soldiers this week. ?The population is the prize?they are why we are going in.? — NNN-APP
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