Admiral Mike Mullen (R) speaks with Helmand Province Governor Mohammad Gulab Mangal
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen (R) shakes hands with a local Afghan elder in Marjah
A map locating Kandahar in Afghanistan
The top US military commander on Tuesday visited Marjah, the frontline of US-led operations against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, where a battle for Kandahar is already ramping up.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in the battle zone a day after President Barack Obama left Afghanistan after a surprise visit, pledging to defeat the Taliban and "to get the job done".
Operations in the farming community of Marjah, set in poppy fields and desert in Helmand province, are the first test of Obama's counter-insurgency campaign aimed at ending an increasingly deadly war now into its ninth year.
Mullen met Helmand governor Gulab Mangal, with whom he discussed the progress of military operations, and pledged support for local security and development, provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi told AFP.
Mullen, who wore US Navy fatigues, and Mangal also met local leaders in a "shura" or community conference, where they heard concerns of Marjah residents including complaints that promised schools and clinics were not yet operating.
An Afghan journalist at the meeting said the Marjah elders complained that the road to provincial capital Lashkar Gah, less than 20 kilometres (12 miles) away, had not reopened since fighting began on February 13.
The United States and allies have boosted their troop numbers to 126,000, with the number set to peak at 150,000 by August as the fight expands into neighbouring Kandahar province, the heartland of the insurgency.
Obama has said he wants to start drawing down American troops from the middle of next year, putting pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to take over responsibility for security by then.
The US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, told Obama earlier this month that he would take on Taliban militants in Kandahar when enough reinforcements were in place.
Military and political efforts against the Taliban around Kandahar, Afghanistan's third biggest city and the Islamist militia's spiritual capital, have "been long under way," a senior NATO officer in Kabul confirmed.
"There's roughly today on the ground about 8,000 coalition troops and 12,000 Afghans in the Kandahar fight," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"In the last two months we've had a tremendous impact on the major approaches into Kandahar to try to squeeze the Taliban's access," he said, claiming that up to "70 significant mid- to high-level Taliban have been taken off the streets of Kandahar in the last several months".
A US Army brigade would boost the coalition force in Kandahar to 11,000 by June, he said. In the city of one million, he said, Afghan police would shoulder the main burden to evict the Taliban and keep them at bay.
"We have never had the force density in Kandahar to really own all the extreme approaches. With forces that have gone in there we have been able to really slice down on a lot of the traditional avenues into Kandahar itself," he said.
The arrival of additional forces would see current operations accelerate, with the aim of clearing the city and its surrounds of Taliban operatives by the religious fasting month of Ramadan, beginning in mid-August.
The campaign follows the launch of Operation Mushtarak in Marjah on February 13, where six weeks later troops are still coming under fire and being targeted by bomb attacks despite efforts to restore Afghan government control.
Upon his return to Washington from Afghanistan, Obama stressed the immediate need for progress in the country, torn by three decades of conflict and nearly a decade of US-led intervention.
He pressed Karzai, who won a new five-year term in fraud-tainted elections in August, to step up the fight against corruption and the drugs trade, and invited the Afghan leader to visit Washington on May 12.
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