"We have enough forces there now not just to clear an area but to hold it. So we can build after. That's really the strategy," Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CBS's "Face the Nation."

Some 4,000 Marines launched a wide-ranging operation Thursday in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold, in what Mullen termed "the first significant one" since President Barack Obama dispatched an additional 21,000 US troops to Afghanistan to battle a mounting Taliban insurgency allied with Al-Qaeda.

Previously, the only military forces on the ground in the area were British troops who frequently exchanged fire with Taliban militants but lacked the necessary presence to take on the insurgency.

Washington is deploying the additional forces in a bid to facilitate the development work and improved governance required to undercut local support for the Taliban.

"We've got to move to a point where there's security so that the economic underpinnings can start to move and... create governance so that the Afghan people can get goods and services consistently from their government," Mullen said.

The area south of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, is the world's biggest opium-growing region and a route for Taliban fighters joining the insurgency from across the Pakistan border.

Operation Khanjar, which involved thousands of Marines moving into the Helmand valley to extend the reach of the Afghan central government, has faced generally light resistance.

But Mullen warned that despite early advances, "I suspect it's going to be tough for a while."

Violence continues to plague Afghanistan, eight years after foreign troops first invaded the country to overthrow the Taliban and hunt Al-Qaeda.

On Sunday, the Canadian Armed Forces said an injured soldier who had been repatriated to Canada for medical treatment had died.

The death of Corporal Charles-Philippe Michaud brought to 122 the number of Canadian troops killed in the war-torn country.

earlier related report
US Marines in fierce battle during Afghan offensive
Since 4,000 US Marines pushed into Taliban-controlled areas of southern Afghanistan on Thursday, one company has been in a constant firefight with the insurgents, the military said.

Troops from Echo company of the 2/8 infantry battalion flew in by helicopter to Mian Poshteh, a key canal and road junction in Helmand province, as part of President Barack Obama's efforts to finally defeat the Islamist militants.

The 200 Marines fighting to hold the position arrived at dawn on Thursday, and they were still engaged in fierce combat through the weekend, Major Dan Gaskell told AFP at nearby Camp Delhi.

"Echo company landed by the canal intersection and set up shop," he said late Saturday. "They have been fighting to hold that position.

"The enemy really wants it back, and have been doing everything they can to dislodge Echo. That continues."

The US has called in helicopter gunships three times to help the Marines, Gaskell said, including one attack using a Hellfire missile.

He said about 40 Taliban fighters were using small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and rockets against the Marines, who have based themselves in a walled compound.

"The enemy tactic is to conduct a feint attack from one compass direction, then fire from a second direction, and follow up with a proper attack from a third," he said.

"They have shown the ability to switch back and forth, so the combination may come from any angle."

One Marine was killed by hostile fire in the first day of the battle, while at least two others have suffered chronic heat exhaustion in the scorching temperatures and had to be evacuated by helicopter.

"Mian Poshteh is the most difficult situation in the current operation," Gaskell said of the site 25 kilometres (15 miles) south of Camp Delta in the Garmsir district of Helmand.

"The enemy are against a 200-plus Marine company, which is the most feared thing in the world. But we have rules of engagement and destroying everything in the area is not our intent. We fight back in a proportional way."

The Helmand River valley is criss-crossed with canals and irrigation ditches built by the US in the 1950s and 1960s to promote agriculture in the region, but the main crop is now opium which funds much of the Islamist insurgency.

"The terrain is pretty tricky and easy to get bogged down in, especially with the weight of gear that Marines carry," Gaskell said.

"The Hellfire missile was fired after the company commander had spent eight hours trying to manoeuvre in on one pocket of resistance. We knew from live aerial video there were no civilians there."

He said another air attack, on Saturday afternoon, was "a helicopter rocket and gun run" that had either killed those targeted or forced them to flee the tree line from where they were firing on the Marines.

Operation Khanjar, which involved thousands of Marines moving into the Helmand valley to extend the reach of the Afghan central government, has faced generally light resistance.

But US commanders say they expect their troops to soon be hit by counter-attacks.

"The enemy assumes that within several days we'll be leaving but we're not going anywhere," Lieutenant Colonel Christian Cabaniss, in charge of the US operations around Garmsir, said.

"We've picked good ground, close to the population centres, and we're going to stay.

"But we do want to know why the enemy have chosen to fight at Mian Poshteh. Perhaps there's a high value commander there."

Obama's plan is to improve security in Helmand so that locals reject the hardline Taliban in favour of the central government, allowing international troops who have been in the country since 2001 to eventually withdraw.

The area south of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, is the world's biggest opium-growing region and a route for Taliban fighters joining the insurgency from across the Pakistan border.

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