U.S. Marines are in a "hell of a fight" as they storm into Taliban strongholds during a major assault in Afghanistan, their commanding officer said Friday.
Nearly 4,000 Marines launched the operation Thursday in parts of the southern province of Helmand, suffering their first fatality in a pivotal test of President Barack Obama's aggressive new strategy against the Taliban.
The 1/5 Infantry Battalion met only light resistance in their push south and had already been able to meet locals at shuras (councils), Brigadier General Larry Nicholson said, speaking to a convoy with which news agency AFP was travelling.
But "for 2/8 there is a hell of a fight going on in the southern quarter of the sector", the top Marine said on arrival at Garmsir, a town along the Helmand River that was a key objective for the offensive.
"2/8 are going to face some challenges," he said. The Marines were in an area called Toshtay about 25 km south of Garmsir.
Commanders said they would persuade locals that the Afghan security forces - backed by Western troops - offered them a better long-term future than the fundamentalist Taliban militia as Afghanistan braces for elections next month.
On Thursday Marines were inserted into Garmsir and Nawa with little resistance, and quickly overran Khanishin further south where the Taliban had set up a proxy government and justice system.
But they also recorded their first death in an air and land assault that is the Marines' biggest operation since in Fallujah in Iraq in November 2004.
"We lost a man yesterday," Nicholson confirmed. "Any Marine casualty is a terrible thing."
Troops had on Thursday destroyed a militant position in Garmsir, the commander said after a nearly two-hour drive through the desert from Camp Dwyer.
"An enemy-controlled baseline just south of Garmsir was crushed yesterday but that doesn't mean all the enemy have gone," he said.
"In the next few days the enemy will observe us to see what we are doing. Then they will come back with a vengeance," he said.
Nicholson later told AFP separately: "Garmsir is three-quarters quiet but there is fighting in Toshtay. We intend to clear that up today. This doesn't mean it is over. The enemy may be reassessing the situation."
On the launch of Operation Khanjar before dawn on Thursday, Nicholson told his group that 4,000 Marines had been inserted in nearly eight hours, about half of them by helicopter.
Helmand Governor Gulab Mangal was "giggling with excitement" at the progress, Nicholson said. "I know the governor and I have never seen him like this."
The Marines, teamed up with nearly 600 Afghan forces, are spearheading Obama's new war plan against the Taliban's bloody insurgency with an emphasis on protecting the population ahead of the second-ever presidential election on Aug. 20, a major test of U.S.-led efforts to install democracy.
They pushed deeper into Taliban strongholds in opium-producing areas along the Helmand River on Friday.
"Today Marines are continuing to move towards those objectives that are still out there and they are going to work to stabilise security in these areas," Marine spokesman First Lieutenant Kurt Stahl said.
British forces announced meanwhile they had successfully carried out one of their "most strategically significant" operations north of the Helmand capital Lashkar Gah.
Hundreds of soldiers had seized 13 key canal crossings which would enable them to stop insurgents moving between Lashkar Gah and the key town of Gereshk, they said.
The Taliban insurgency has seen a record levels of violence this year.
In fresh attacks Friday, a remote-controlled bomb blew up a vehicle of road construction workers from an Indian firm in the eastern province of Paktya and killed five men, a provincial government spokesman said.
A suicide bomber meanwhile exploded near Italian soldiers in the western province of Herat, police said. There were no Afghan casualties, he said.
The NATO-led force confirmed that two of its troops were wounded after the blast caused a vehicle to overturn.
Another suicide bomber blew up a car outside the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif but caused no casualties, the Interior Ministry said.