LAHORE – In an article ‘Taliban is losing its advantage in Afghanistan’, the Washington Post said until five months ago, Forward Operating Base Jackson in Sangin, Helmand province, was an island in a Taliban sea. Patrol bases were ringed by Taliban flags, and each spring the fertile land along the Helmand River bloomed red with poppies, as 35 drug-processing labs helped fund the Taliban. But the newspaper said after the arrival of 1,500 marines in Sangin, things started to change. Although during the first three months of operations, more than two dozen marines died while 150 others were wounded but they also killed 400 insurgent in the process. In the end they owned the ground.
The WP says the war-weary locals have begun cooperating and providing information. Morale of the Afghan army and police has improved and the farmers are being given other seeds to replace poppies. Though the region is not fully pacified, the marines have quickly established themselves as the toughest tribe in this part of the Taliban homeland. It claims that the Afghan surge – involving about 40,000 additional coalition forces and more than 70,000 new recruits to the Afghan army and police – has made swift progress. And these advances are accumulating into a strategy.
