Negative Blogs

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has condemned suicide attacks in the capital that killed at least 17 people including Indian citizens saying the strikes won’t hurt Afghan-Indian relations.

In a statement, Karzai said he “strongly condemns” the terrorist attacks that occurred Friday targeting two guesthouses in central Kabul where most of the guests were Indian.

“Attacks on Indian citizens will not affect relations between India and Afghanistan,” he said.

Karzai expressed his sadness to the people and government of India, and sent his condolences to the families of those killed and wounded.

He says Afghan officials are investigating the incident and who is behind it.

The Taliban claimed responsibility saying five suicide bombers conducted the early morning attacks on two buildings used by foreign citizens.

Suicide bombers attacked in the heart of Kabul on Friday, triggering a series of explosions and gunbattles that killed at least 17 people in an area of residential hotels rented by Indian embassy workers and other foreigners, police and witnesses said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying five suicide bombers conducted the early morning attacks on two buildings used by foreign citizens. Police said Indians were among those killed in the blasts.

“Today’s suicide attack took place in our residential complex. We are representing India,” Dr. Surbod Sanjiv Paul of India said at a military hospital, where his wounded foot was bandaged.

He said he was holed up in his bathroom for three hours inside one of the small hotels when it came under attack.

“When I was coming out, I found two or three dead bodies. When firing was going on, the first car bomb exploded and the full roof came on my head.”

The attacks in Kabul came as thousands of U.S., Afghan and NATO soldiers were in their second week of a major offensive against a Taliban stronghold in the town of Marjah in southern Afghanistan. NATO said one service member was killed Friday by a roadside bomb, bringing to 14 the number of service members who have died in the operation in Helmand province.

In recent weeks, more than two dozen senior and midlevel Taliban figures have been detained in Pakistan, suggesting the attack in the capital could be a way for the militants to show the insurgency remains potent.

At least 17 people were killed in Friday’s attack and 32 wounded, said Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, head of criminal investigation for the Kabul police. He said three of the dead were police officers and most of the civilians killed were Indians.

The targets included two residential hotels. A car bomb flattened the Hamid Guesthouse and assailants also attacked the nearby Park Residence, Sayedzada said. An Associated Press reporter saw police carry seven bodies from the Park Residence.

The explosions woke up residents near the Kabul City Center, a nine-story shopping area that includes the four-star Safi Landmark Hotel. Witnesses said one explosion created a crater about 3 feet (1 meter) wide and windows of the nearby Safi hotel were blown out.

“I saw foreigners were crying and shouting,” said Najibullah, a 25-year-old hotel worker who ran out into the rain-slickened street in just his underwear when he heard the first explosion.

Najibullah, whose face and hands were covered in blood, said he saw two suicide bombers at the site. “It was a very bad situation inside,” he said. “God helped me, otherwise I would be dead. I saw one suicide bomber blowing himself up.”

A large plume of black smoke rose from the area. Shattered glass littered the streets, which were mostly emptied because it was the first day of the Afghan weekend. Afghan police, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, crouched behind traffic barriers with guns ready as a light rain fell and shots sounded from multiple sides.

Police escorted a middle-aged woman in pink pajamas out of the area. She wore a brown sweater, but no shoes and her socks sopped up water as she walked as if in a daze down the street. “I haven’t seen. … Where are my …?” she said, speaking only in sentence fragments.

More than two hours after the first explosion, gunfire continued to ring out around one of the guesthouses. Police with gas masks were attempting to smoke out a suspected attacker holed up in the basement of the building, according to a police officer at the scene who only gave his first name, Abdulrahman.

The Canadian Embassy issued a statement saying the violence would not undermine international commitment to Afghanistan.

“Attacks, such as today’s bombing, will not deter Canada or its international partners from its commitment to support Afghans in their efforts to create a stable, democratic and self-sufficient society,” the embassy said in a strong condemnation of the attack.

Jack Barton, an Australian aid worker, said he was awakened by a large blast that blew in the windows of the guesthouse where he was staying and filled the room with dust.

“There was very intense street fighting outside the guesthouse compound. It happened very close by. After an hour, it slowly drifted away,” he said.

It was the first attack in the Afghan capital since Jan. 18, when teams of suicide bombers and gunmen targeted government buildings, leaving 12 dead, including seven attackers. On Dec. 15, a suicide car bomber hit near a hotel frequented by foreigners, killing eight people.

In Oct. 28, gunmen with suicide vests stormed a small residential hotel, leaving 11 dead, including five U.N. staff and three attackers. Earlier that month, on Oct. 8, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle outside the Indian Embassy, killing 17 people.

India is among the largest economic donors to Afghanistan apart from countries that have sent troops to the NATO-led mission. India is seeking regional allies and access to oil- and gas-rich central Asia.

But India’s growing role here is strongly opposed by Pakistan, which wants a friendly government without ties to its archrival, and by the Taliban because of Indian links to rival ethnic communities here. Many of the Islamic extremist groups in the region have been fighting the Indians for years in Indian-controlled parts of Kashmir.

Police on the scene said the two small hotels appeared to be the targets of the attack because they sustained the most direct damage, said officer Gulam Mustafa. The Park Residence has housed at least some Indian Embassy workers for the past five or six years, said security guard Ahmad, who only gave one name. He said other foreigners also lived there.

“It was full mostly of Indians. They were doctors, engineers,” said Ali Jan Rezaee, who owns a bakery down the street.

The windows of his bake shop were broken and trays of cookies inside were littered with glass shards. “I am very happy I am alive, I am safe,” he said.

An Indian Embassy staffer, who lives at one the hotels that was hit, said he hid in his room until the fighting stopped.

“It was early in the morning and firing started in the hotel,” said Kasaif, who did not give his first name. “We stayed inside our room and locked the door.” Hard money training.

The Afghan government took official control of the southern Taliban stronghold of Marjah on Thursday, installing an administrator and raising the national flag  while U.S.-led troops rooted out final pockets of militants.

The ceremony occurred in a central market as U.S. Marines and Afghan troops slogged through bomb-laden fields in northern parts of the town. Some 700 residents gathered to see Abdul Zahir Aryan formally appointed as the top government official in Marjah, according to U.S. officials at the event.

Aryan and a team of advisers held their first meeting in the town Monday and have been staying overnight in a building there since Tuesday, said Marlin Harbinger, the senior U.S. government representative for Helmand province, which contains Marjah.

“Today’s event was the civilian Afghan government re-establishing itself officially in front of the local residents,” Harbinger said. The Afghan army had previously raised the country’s green-and-red flag nearby, but that was only a claim of military control over that neighborhood, he said.

The ceremony opened with a reading from the Quran, and then Aryan and the Helmand governor pledged to those gathered that they were ready to listen to their needs and eager to provide them with basic services that they didn’t have under the Taliban.

After the ceremony, the generals and high-level officials departed in helicopters, but Aryan remained.

The mass assault in southern Helmand province, with 15,000 NATO and Afghan troops, is the largest military operation in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led ouster of the Taliban regime in 2001.

NATO’s strategy is to rout Taliban militants from the town, which had served as a logistical base and drug trafficking hub, restore the Afghan government’s presence, and rush in public services in a bid to win over the confidence of local communities.

In the north Thursday, the Marines’ progress was slowed by difficult terrain with no roads, few tracks and many hidden mines, but there was no gunfire by midmorning. Several armored vehicles fell into irrigation canals while others were damaged by roadside bombs.

About 100 fighters are believed to have regrouped into the 28-square mile (45-square kilometer) area known as Kareze, according to commanders with the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines Regiment. The Marines and their Afghan partners are working to secure the area, believed to be the last significant pocket of Taliban insurgents in town.

The last few days have been relatively calm throughout Marjah, with limited engagement by insurgents, as troops secured areas they had already taken and moved into position to tackle the final insurgent holdouts.

NATO said in a statement that while there are still occasional gunfights in the town, the number of residents returning has increased in recent days and shops have opened to sell telephones and computers alongside fresh fruits and vegetables.

In a sign that NATO’s push to win over the population may be gaining traction, bomb tips from residents have increased by nearly 50 percent, the alliance said.

As the offensive closes in on its second week, 13 NATO troops and three Afghan soldiers have been killed, according to military officials. Eighty NATO troops have been wounded, along with eight Afghans.

At least 28 civilians have been killed, including 13 children, according to the Afghan human rights commission.

The civilian toll has raised fears that NATO may lose the support of the population even as it drives out the Taliban. The deaths come even though NATO has said its priority is protecting the civilian population and has adopted strict rules to prevent casualties.

A spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry said both the Afghan government and NATO troops realized they had to be realistic and accept that there would be civilian deaths.

“Preventing civilian casualties is our biggest challenge,” Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi told reporters in Kabul. “You should not expect zero casualties, either from our side or from the international forces. That will only happen when the fighting is over. And we are all trying to make that happen.”

NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay, speaking alongside Azimi, urged Afghans to recognize that international troops are putting themselves in greater danger in order to try to protect civilians.

“We are going beyond the laws of armed conflict by increasing our risk,” Tremblay said. Hard money training.

Math teacher David Benke says he had no time to fear for his life when he tackled a man he said was preparing to reload a rifle to shoot students at a Colorado middle school who were heading home for the day.

And Benke doesn’t consider himself a hero for stopping the 32-year-old accused of wounding two students Tuesday at the Littleton school that’s just miles from Columbine High School, the site of one of the nation’s deadliest school shootings.

“You know, it bugs me that he got another round off,” Benke said of the two shots that authorities say Bruco Strongeagle Eastwood fired.

On Tuesday, Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink praised Benke, calling him a hero. Benke, the father of 7-year-old twins and a 13-year-old girl, fought back tears after Mink thanked him.

“I know he feels bad about not being able to intervene sooner, but believe me when I say, I think he stopped what could have been a more tragic event than it was this afternoon,” Mink said.

The victims, Deer Creek Middle School students Reagan Webber and Matt Thieu, were both treated at Littleton Adventist Hospital. Spokeswoman Christine Alexander said Webber was treated and released to her home, and Thieu was transferred to another hospital.

Authorities say both victims had surgery Tuesday.

Benke and other teachers were monitoring the parking lot in the afternoon when Benke heard what he thought was a firecracker and began walking toward the noise.

“At first when I was walking over there, it was kind of what a teacher does,” Benke said, still shaken hours after Tuesday’s shooting. “`Hey kid, what are you doing,’ you know that kind of thing.”

“Unfortunately he got another round off before I could grab him. He had a bolt action rifle …. He figured out that he wasn’t going to be able to get another round chambered before I got to him so he dropped the gun and then we were kind of struggling around trying to get him subdued.”

Benke said he doesn’t remember the students running from the scene or the time it took sheriff’s deputies to arrive at the school. He didn’t have time to think about anything happening around him.

The 6-5, former college basketball player oversees the school’s track team. He said another teacher was quickly on the scene and both of them pinned the gunman to the ground.

“I basically have my arms and legs wrapped around him, (the other teacher) has his forearm around his front and we were basically trying to get the guy to quit struggling.

School officials could not immediately confirm the names of other teachers who helped subdue the shooter.

“I talked to him while we were on the ground. I was underneath him and his face was pretty close to mine,” Benke said. “I asked him, `Why did you do this? Were you a student here?’

“He either didn’t respond or his responses didn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Benke said.

Denver station KUSA-TV reported that Eastwood attended Deer Creek Middle School in the early 1990s.

Eastwood has an arrest record in Colorado dating back to 1996 for menacing, assault, domestic violence and driving under the influence of alcohol, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

In 2005, he participated in a NASA-funded medical study in which he spent 10 days in a hospital bed so scientist could study muscle wasting, an affliction experienced by astronauts during long flights, according to a story in the Rocky Mountain News.

He told the newspaper that he had a lifelong dream of being an astronaut and described his occupation to the newspaper as horse trainer working at his father’s Eagle’s Nest Ranch in Hudson.

Investigators said Eastwood visited the school previously and was inside shortly before the shooting. He is expected to make his first court appearance Wednesday and may face at least two counts of attempted murder.

A man who answered the phone Tuesday night at a number listed for Eastwood identified himself only as “Mr. Eastwood” and said he was Bruco Eastwood’s father. He was at a loss for words.

“There’s nothing you can say about it. What can you say?” the man told The Associated Press. “Pretty dumb thing to do. I feel bad for the people involved.” He wouldn’t comment further. Hard money training.

A U.S. Navy warship  prevented an attack on a Tanzanian ship and apprehended eight suspected pirates in the process, the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania said on Tuesday.

USS Farragut dispatched an SH-60B Seahawk helicopter to MV Barakaale 1 after it raised a distress call saying it was under attack from a gang on a skiff, the embassy said in a statement.

“The helicopter then stopped the … skiff as it attempted to speed away, by firing warning shots across its bow,” it said.

“A boarding team from USS Farragut boarded the vessel and the eight suspected pirates were taken aboard the Farragut.”

The statement did not say when and where the incident occurred, nor give the pirates’ nationalities. The USS Farragut is a guided missile destroyer and part of Combined Task Force 151 that patrols the Gulf of Aden and the east coast of Somalia.

The task force, formed in 2009, comprises about three dozen ships from Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Pakistan, Canada, Denmark, Turkey, United States and United Kingdom among other countries.

The coast off Somalia is among the world’s most dangerous shipping lanes.

The number of piracy attacks worldwide jumped by 40 percent last year, with gunmen from the failed Horn of Africa state accounting for more than half the 406 reported incidents, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Hard money training.

Emergency crews used bulldozers and other heavy equipment Monday to search for at least four people still missing in Madeira after flash floods and rockslides killed 42 people on the Portuguese vacation island.

Rescue teams in more than 400 vehicles worked all through the night to clear tons of caked mud, boulders and snapped trees that had piled up in the capital of Funchal and other coastal communities, authorities said.

After a month’s worth of rain fell in about eight hours, a raging torrent of water and mud swept away people, houses and vehicles Saturday on the steep-sloped Atlantic Ocean island. Locals said the storm was the worst in living memory.

Only four people were officially unaccounted for on Monday, but officials said there could be further victims because blocked roads and downed phone lines made it difficult to get a complete picture of the damage.

Parts of downtown Funchal were cordoned off as crews pumped rainwater and sludge out of a shopping mall’s underground parking lot where officials fear more bodies may be found. The parking lot’s two levels were completely submerged.

“The recovery is going to be a hard work,” resident Miguel Eduardo told Associated Press Television News. “It will take us a few months to recover.”

More than 120 people were injured, and almost 120 others forced to leave their homes by the flooding were staying at a military barracks, according to the regional government.

Several main roads remained blocked by debris, but officials hoped to reopen all the island’s roads by the end of the week.

The victims, in white body bags, were taken to Funchal’s international airport where a makeshift morgue was set up. Among the dead was a local firefighter who was swept away in a muddy torrent as he tried to save a woman, his colleagues said.

The British Foreign office said one British national was killed and a few others had been hospitalized on Madeira. The island is popular with British tourists because of its mild climate.

Madeira is the main island of a Portuguese archipelago of the same name in the Atlantic Ocean just over 300 miles (480 kilometers) off the west coast of Africa. It has a population of around 250,000 people.

The head of the regional government, Alberto Joao Jardim, told people to stay at home if they could Monday and schools canceled classes for some 30,000 students.

The flash floods were so powerful they carved paths down mountains and ripped through the city, churning under some bridges and tearing others down.

“A woman came running and said the water is coming and then she started to run, and then we ran with her,” Danish tourist Luna Graigsson told APTN. “It was astonishing that the water came so fast.”

The Portuguese government was holding a special Cabinet meeting Monday and was expected to announce three days of national mourning for the victims. It may also grant financial aid to rebuild Madeira’s many destroyed roads and bridges.

The regional government says it has no estimate yet of its financial needs.

Portugal Telecom said 85 percent of the island’s cellular and fixed-line capacity was restored by late Sunday.

Environmental groups alleged that building on natural water runoffs and the island’s poor infrastructure management contributed to the disaster, but officials insisted it was impossible to prepare for such a freak deluge.

A Portuguese Navy frigate bringing troops to help with the cleanup was to dock in Funchal later Monday. A medical team with divers and rescue experts arrived Sunday aboard a military transport plane.

Light showers were forecast for the Atlantic Ocean island Monday and Tuesday. Hard money training.

The Sunni wing of Iraq’s leading nonsectarian political coalition said Saturday it will drop out of next month’s election as a result of alleged Iranian influence on a Shiite-led vetting panel that blacklisted hundreds of candidates.

The announcement raises the likelihood that the legitimacy of the March 7 parliamentary vote will be called into question. U.S. and United Nations diplomats have expressed fears that a disputed result could also open the door to a new round of violence and delay plans for American troops to leave Iraq.

Further raising the stakes, the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue called on other parties to join it in withdrawing from the vote. It stopped short, however, of advocating a boycott by Sunni voters — a strategy blamed for depriving Sunnis of a political voice in the past.

In a statement explaining the step, spokesman Haidar al-Mullah said the party decided to pull out of the vote after U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill and Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top American military commander in Iraq, each described the Shiite leaders of a candidate-vetting panel as having ties to Iran.

He described the panel’s work as an Iranian-influenced process and said, “The Iraqi Front for National Dialogue cannot continue in a political process run by a foreign agenda.”

The vetting panel is led by Shiite politicians Ali al-Lami and Ahmed Chalabi. It banned more than 440 candidates whom it described as loyalists to Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath party.

Most of the blacklisted candidates are Sunni, although some are Shiite. Among those barred from running is Sunni lawmaker Saleh al-Mutlaq, the head of the National Dialogue party. Al-Mutlaq has said he quit the Baath party in the 1970s.

In a speech last week to the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, Odierno said the U.S. has direct intelligence that al-Lami and Chalabi “are clearly influenced by Iran.” Odierno also accused al-Lami of having been “involved in various nefarious activities in Iraq for some time.”

A day later, Hill told reporters in Washington that “absolutely, these gentlemen are certainly under the influence of Iran.”

Hill added: “We remain concerned about Iran’s behavior toward its neighbors. Iran should have a good relationship with its neighbor, but it needs to do a much better job of respecting its neighbor’s sovereignty.”

A perception among Sunnis that they are being shut out of the election could set back progress the U.S. military made in 2006 and 2007 in reversing the insurgency, which threatened Iraq with civil war. A breakdown in security could also hamper U.S. plans to withdraw all combat troops by the end of August, a step that is critical to President Barack Obama’s new focus on Afghanistan.

The National Dialogue currently has 11 members in parliament, including al-Mutlaq. It is the main Sunni wing of the Iraqi National Movement, the nation’s top nonsectarian coalition. The Shiite wing of the National Movement is headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

Shortly after al-Mullah issued his statement Saturday morning, another party, the National Council for Tribes of Iraq, said it also would drop out. The party includes both Sunnis and Shiites. Hard money training.

Hamas claimed Friday that two ex-officers from the rival Fatah organization were involved in the assassination of a Hamas operative in Dubai, and Fatah shot back by insinuating Hamas members were the ones who collaborated with the killers.

The slaying of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a luxury Dubai hotel room last month has widely been blamed on Israel’s Mossad spy agency but it also has sparked bitter recriminations among the rival Palestinian factions, which have long competed for influence in the Palestinian territories.

Dubai police unveiled 11 suspects — 10 men and one woman — who apparently traveled to Dubai on European passports with real names and authentic data, but possibly altered photos.

Dubai also said police had two Palestinians in custody for alleged involvement in the murder of al-Mabhouh, whose body was found on Jan. 20. The two were arrested in Jordan shortly after the killing, then sent back to Dubai.

A Hamas Web site, the Palestine Information Center, said those two men were former Fatah security officers and current employees of a senior Fatah official, who was not identified. Dubai authorities have not identified the two Palestinians and would not comment Friday.

Hamas stopped short of accusing Fatah of collaborating with the Mossad, however. Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’ leadership in Damascus, told The Associated Press on Friday that Hamas is “not accusing any party” other than Israel, though he said the agents might have used “small collaborators for logistic issues.”

The Hamas Web site identifies the two men as Anwar Shheibar and Ahmad Hassanain. It says they served in Fatah’s security services in Gaza, fled the territory in 2006, and currently work for a construction company owned by a high-ranking Fatah official, Mohammed Dahlan.

Fatah denies connection
Dahlan denied any connection to the men or to the killing.

“I don’t have any companies in Dubai and I don’t know these people,” he told The Associated Press by telephone from Amman, Jordan.

“Only Hamas knew he (al-Mabhouh) was in Dubai, so it’s their fault, not the Palestinian Authority’s,” he said. “For political reasons Hamas is blaming us for its own internal problems.”

A Fatah spokesman also denied the charge. “Hamas is trying by these accusations to cover up the security flaws in the first lines of its leadership,” said Adnan Damiri, a spokesman for Palestinian security forces in the Fatah-ruled West Bank. “Hamas is the only one to know the movement of Al-Mabhouh, and from there the information went to the Israelis.”

Officials of the Fatah-affiliated Palestinian Authority in the West Bank city of Ramallah said the two men are former members of Fatah who later joined Hamas security forces in Gaza. They said the men were sent to Dubai on Hamas business last month but had no further details. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they had not been given permission to comment publicly.

Israel mum
Israel has refused to comment on accusations it was behind the killing, with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman saying Wednesday that “Israel never responds, never confirms and never denies.”

Hamas and Fatah have been trading accusations over the affair for days, but Friday’s allegations were the first time names were used. Each side has made attempts to tone down the rhetoric — perhaps to avoid destroying prospects for reconciliation between the rivals who control separate territories on opposite sides of Israel.

The Western-backed Fatah and the Islamic militant Hamas fought a bloody civil war in 2007 that left Hamas in charge of Gaza and Fatah in control of the West Bank. Palestinians hope to establish a state in both areas. Hard money training.

In five days of fighting, the Taliban have shown a side not often seen in nearly a decade of American military action in Afghanistan: the use of snipers, both working alone and integrated into guerrilla-style ambushes.

Five Marines and two Afghan soldiers have been struck here in recent days by bullets fired at long range. That includes one Marine fatally shot and two others wounded in the opening hour of a four-hour clash on Wednesday, when a platoon with Company K of the Third Battalion, Sixth Marines, was ambushed while moving on foot across a barren expanse of flat ground between the clusters of low-slung mud buildings.

Almost every American and Afghan infantryman present has had frightening close calls. Some of the shooting has apparently been from Kalashnikov machine guns, the Marines say, mixed with sniper fire.

The near misses have included lone bullets striking doorjambs beside their faces as Marines peeked around corners, single rounds cracking by just overhead as Marines looked over mud walls, and bullets slamming into the dirt beside them as they ran across the many unavoidable open spaces in the area they have been assigned to clear.

On Wednesday, firing came from primitive compounds, irrigation canals and agricultural fields as the bloody struggle between the Marines and the Taliban for control of the northern portion of this Taliban enclave continued for a fifth day.

In return, Company K used mortars, artillery, helicopter attack gunships and an airstrike in a long afternoon of fighting, which ended, as has been the pattern for nearly a week, with the waning evening light.

The fight to push the Taliban from this small area of Marja, a rural belt of dense poppy cultivation with few roads and almost no services, has relented only briefly since Company K landed by helicopters in the blackness early on Saturday morning. It has been a grinding series of skirmishes triggered by the company’s advances to seize sections of villages, a bridge and a bazaar where it has established an outpost and patrol bases.

Over all, most Taliban small-arms fire has been haphazard and ineffective, an unimpressive display of ill discipline or poor skill. But this more familiar brand of Taliban shooting has been punctuated by the work of what would seem to be several well-trained marksmen.

On Monday, a sniper struck an Afghan soldier in the neck at a range of roughly 500 to 700 yards. The Afghan was walking across an open area when the single shot hit him. He died.

The experience of First Platoon on Wednesday was the latest chilling example. The platoon, laden with its backpacks, was moving west toward the company’s main outpost after several days of operating in the eastern portion of the company’s area.

Marines here often stay within the small clusters of buildings as they walk, seeking the relative protection of mud walls. But it is impossible to move far without venturing into the open to cross to new villages. As First Platoon moved into the last wide expanse before reaching the command post, the Taliban began a complex ambush.

First bullets came from a Kalashnikov firing from the south, said First Lt. Jarrod D. Neff, the platoon commander. The attack had a logic: to the south, a deep irrigation canal separates the insurgents from anyone walking on the north side, where the company’s forces are concentrated. Vegetation is also thicker there, providing ample concealment.

There have been several ambushes in this same spot since the long-planned Afghan and American operation to evict the Taliban and establish a government presence in Marja began. Each time, the Marines and their Afghan counterparts have run through the open by turns, some of them sprinting while others provided suppressive fire. Hard money training.

Taliban insurgents are increasingly using civilians as human shields as they fight allied troops trying to take the militants’ southern stronghold of Marjah, an Afghan official said Wednesday as military squads resumed painstaking house-to-house searches.

About 15,000 NATO and Afghan troops are taking part in the offensive around Marjah, which has an estimated 80,000 inhabitants and was the largest town in southern Helmand province under Taliban control. NATO hopes to rush in aid and public services as soon as the town is secured to try to win the loyalty of the population.

With the assault in its fifth day, insurgents are firing at Afghan troops from inside or next to compounds where women and children appear to have been ordered to stand on a roof or in a window, said Gen. Mohiudin Ghori, the brigade commander for Afghan troops in Marjah.

“Especially in the south of Marjah, the enemy is fighting from compounds where soldiers can very clearly see women or children on the roof or in a second-floor or third-floor window,” Ghori said. “They are trying to get us to fire on them and kill the civilians.”

The Marjah offensive is the biggest joint operation since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and is a major test of a retooled NATO strategy to focus on protecting civilians, rather than killing insurgents.

Ghori said troops have made choices either not to fire at the insurgents with civilians nearby or they have had to target and advance much more slowly in order to distinguish between militants and civilians as they go.

Even with such caution on both the NATO and Afghan side, civilians have been killed. NATO has confirmed 15 civilian deaths in the operation. Afghan rights groups say at least 19 have been killed.

In northern Marjah on Wednesday, U.S. Marines fanned out through poppy fields, dirt roads and side alleys to take control of a broader stretch of area from insurgents as machine gun fire rattled in the distance.

The Marines found several compounds that had primitive drawings on their walls depicting insurgents blowing up tanks or helicopters, a sign that Afghan troops say revealed strong Taliban support in the neighborhood.

Lt. Col. Brian Christmas, commander of 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, said security has improved enough in northern Marjah for Afghan police to step in. Other Marine units have taken control over main locations in the center of town.

“Bringing in the Afghan police frees up my forces to clear more insurgent zones,” Christmas said.

Combat engineers were building a fortified base at the entrance of town for the police, who are expected to arrive Thursday.

Afghan police chosen for the task in Marjah were selected from other regions of the country instead of Helmand province, Marine officials said, in order to avoid handing over day-to-day security to officers who may have tribal or friendship ties to the Taliban.

A day earlier, Marines and Afghan forces moving by land from the north had succeeded in linking up with U.S. units that have faced nearly constant Taliban attack in the four days since they were dropped by helicopter into this insurgent stronghold.

The linkup between the two Marine rifle companies and their Afghan army partners will enable the U.S. to expand its control in Marjah, about 380 miles (610 kilometers) southwest of Kabul.

A top Taliban commander, Mullah Abdul Razaq Akhund, dismissed the offensive as NATO propaganda and said on the group’s Web site that Marjah was militarily insignificant.

Four NATO service members have been killed in the Marjah operation. An American and a Briton were killed on Saturday, while two others whose nationalities were not identified were killed Tuesday. One Afghan soldier also died Tuesday, Afghan officials said.

The Marines and Afghan troops “saw sustained but less frequent insurgent activity” in Marjah on Wednesday, limited mostly to small-scale attacks, NATO said in a statement.

Marine officials have said that Taliban resistance has started to seem more disorganized than in the first few days of the assault, when small teams of insurgents swarmed around Marine and Afghan army positions firing rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

Troops are encountering less fire from mortars and RPGs than at the start of the assault, suggesting that the insurgents may have depleted some of their reserves or that the heavier weapons have been hit, Ghori said.

Nevertheless, Taliban have not given up. Insurgent snipers hiding in haystacks in poppy fields have exchanged fire with Marines and Afghan troops in recent days as they swept south.

Insurgents tried but failed to shoot down an Osprey aircraft with rocket-propelled grenades as Cobra attack helicopters fired missiles at Taliban positions, including a machine gun bunker.

NATO said it has reinstated use of a high-tech rocket system that it suspended after two rockets hit a house on the outskirts of Marjah on Sunday, killing 12 people, including at least five children.

The military coalition originally said the missiles went hundreds of yards (meters) off target but said Tuesday that it determined that the rockets hit the intended target.

Afghan officials said three Taliban fighters were in the house at the time.

Violence and NATO strikes have continued elsewhere in the country.

In neighboring Kandahar province, four Afghan policemen were killed and four others were wounded when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb on Tuesday, the Afghan Interior Ministry said.

And in the east, NATO said it killed more than a dozen insurgents in an airstrike near the Pakistani border. Hard money training.

Three more Afghan civilians were killed in the assault on a southern Taliban stronghold, NATO forces said Tuesday, highlighting the toll on the population from an offensive aimed at making them safer.

The deaths — in three separate incidents — come after two errant U.S. missiles struck a house on the outskirts of the town of Marjah on Sunday, killing 12 people, half of them children. Afghan officials said Monday three Taliban fighters were in the house at the time of the attack.

About 15,000 NATO and Afghan troops are taking part in the massive offensive around Marjah — the linchpin of the Taliban logistical and opium poppy smuggling network in the militant-influenced south. U.S. Marines are spearheading the assault.

As the assault aimed at breaking the Taliban stranglehold over southern Afghanistan continued, the extremist group received a blow with the news that the Taliban’s top military commander has been arrested in Pakistan.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the No. 2 behind Afghan Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar and a close associate of Osama bin Laden, was captured in the port city of Karachi, U.S. and Pakistani officials said, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the information. The arrest appeared to have occurred as many as 10 days ago, and it was unclear if it had had any effect on the Marjah battle.

The offensive is the biggest joint operation since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, and a major test of a retooled NATO strategy to focus on protecting civilians, rather than killing insurgents.

But in the fourth day of an assault that could take weeks, the drumbeat of gunfire and controlled detonations of planted bombs sparked fears that civilians will bear the burden of the fight.

In two of the incidents NATO confirmed Tuesday, Afghan men came toward NATO forces and ignored shouts and hand signals to stop, NATO said. Troops opened fire and killed them.

In the third incident, two Afghan men were caught in the crossfire between insurgents and NATO forces. Both were wounded and one died of his injuries despite being given medical care, NATO said.

Taliban fighters have stepped up counterattacks against Marines and Afghan soldiers in Marjah, slowing the allied advance to a crawl despite Afghan government claims the insurgents were broken and on the run.

Though NATO has only confirmed 15 civilian deaths, an Afghan human rights group said Tuesday that they have counted 19 civilians killed since the beginning of the operation. Four of those were people who were caught in the crossfire when they had to leave their homes for various reasons.

“Their neighbors tell us that the bodies are outside and they want someone to pick them up. They say they’re scared if they go outside they will also be shot dead,” said Ajmal Samadi, the director of Afghanistan Rights Monitor. It was unclear whether NATO or insurgent forces were to blame for the deaths, he said.

In the streets, Taliban fighters appeared to be slipping under the cover of darkness into compounds already deemed free of weapons and explosives, then opening fire on the Marines from behind U.S. lines.

Explosions could be heard around town Tuesday as Marines endeavored to push further through streets littered with bombs and booby traps.

Squads with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines fanned out into compounds to search for explosive devices and insurgents, as an armored-vehicle convoy moved forward. A mine-roller leading the way continuously detonated planted bombs as it advanced.

Residents said they were scared to be seen with NATO forces.

“Don’t take pictures or the Taliban will come back to kill me,” Wali Mohammad told an AP reporter as Marines searched his compound.

He said he strongly suspected insurgents would return to the area as soon as the Marines moved on.

He denied that the Taliban had holed up in his house during Monday’s fighting, but said they often shot at U.S. and Afghan troops from his neighbors’ house.

“When they come, we try to tell them not to use our house, but they have guns so they do what they want,” the poppy farmer said.

The Marines’ goal for many days has been to link up with other companies that airdropped into the city Saturday, but progress has been slow.

“It’s really crucial that we get through today,” said Lima Company Capt. Joshua Winfrey.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai approved the assault on Marjah only after instructing NATO and Afghan commanders to be careful about harming civilians. “This operation has been done with that in mind,” the top NATO commander, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, said Monday.

Despite those instructions, NATO reported its first civilian deaths Sunday, saying two U.S. rockets veered off target by up to 600 yards (meters) and slammed into a home — killing six children and six adults.

In London, Britain’s top military officer, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, called the missile strike a “very serious setback” to efforts to win the support of locals, who are from the same Pashtun ethnic group as the Taliban.

NATO suspended the use of the rocket system that killed the civilians following the 12 deaths, pending an investigation.

In a separate incident unrelated to the Marjah offensive, a NATO airstrike in neighboring Kandahar province killed five civilians and wounded two. NATO said in a statement they were mistakenly believed to have been planting roadside bombs.

Afghan commanders spoke optimistically about progress in Marjah, a town of about 80,000 people seen as key to securing the restive south.

“It is very weak resistance, sporadic resistance by the enemy in some villages in Marjah area,” Chief of Army Staff Bismullah Mohammadi said. Other officials have said Taliban fighters were fleeing across the border and the town should soon be cleared of insurgents.

In Marjah, however, there has been little sign the Taliban are broken. Instead, small, mobile teams of insurgents have repeatedly attacked U.S. and Afghan troops with rocket, rifle and rocket-propelled grenade fire in recent days.

Taliban fighters moved close enough to the main road to fire repeatedly on columns of mine-clearing vehicles.

Allied officials have reported only two coalition deaths so far — one American and one Briton killed Saturday. There have been no reports of wounded. Afghan officials said at least 27 insurgents were killed so far in the offensive.

As long as the town remains unstable, NATO officials cannot move to the second phase — restoring Afghan government control and rushing in aid and public services to win over inhabitants who have been living under Taliban rule for years. Hard money training.