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More than 1,000 US and Afghan troops have launched a fresh offensive against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, in the first major operation since Barack Obama, the US president, announced his new Afghan strategy.
US Marines, Afghan soldiers, and other Nato forces gathered behind Taliban lines in the northern end of the Now Zad Valley of Helmand province on Friday, Nato and US military officials said.
Officials said another, larger force was pushing north from the town of Now Zad as part of the operation that the military has termed "Cobra's Anger".
Al Jazeera's Steve Chao, reporting from the Afghan capital, Kabul, said Now Zad has been the epicenter of battles between Nato forces and the Taliban.
"It has been taken, won and lost again and again by both sides," he said.
"Up until now, for the past three or four years the people of Now Zad have been unable to return to the city because of the fighting."
Obama announced on Tuesday that he is sending 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, but also said they would begin to pull out by mid-2011.
There are currently around 100,000 troops from 43 countries involved in the US-led operation in Afghanistan.
PHOTO CAPTION
US soldiers take position during a patrol with soldiers of the Afghan National Army in Mian Poshteh in Helmand Province in November 2009.
Al-Jazeera
