4,000 US marines, deployed from Iraq, are advancing into the Helmand River valley in Afghanistan without the avowed intention of holding the ground once they have taken it.
This, according to military sources, has been the problem with the British efforts in Helmand, namely that the Brits don’t have the numbers (and maybe the kit) to hold the ground once it’s taken.
The Americans clearly have more of both and president Barack Obama will be hoping that brigadier general Larry Nicholson’s marines, the advance force of the extra 21,000 troops the Americans are planning to commit, will have a similar effect in Helmand to the famous ’surge’ in Iraq.
Meanwhile two more British solders, one from the Welsh Guards and one from the Royal Tank Regiment have been killed in Helmand by yet another roadside bomb.
And this is the crux. Can even 21,000 US troops hold a huge province securely enough to defeat an elusive enemy that’s clearly decided it’s less trouble to blow up occupying forces than trade bullets with them?
Not only that but the Taliban have apparently taken to planting their bombs in the cool of the morning or the evening rather than the daytime heat.
Wouldn’t want to inconvenience them or anything.