Taliban fighters are using human shields, U.S. says

MARJAH, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters holding out in Marjah are increasingly using civilians as human shields, firing from compounds where U.S. and Afghan forces can clearly see women and children on rooftops or in windows, Afghan and U.S. troops said Wednesday.

The intermingling of fighters and civilians also has been witnessed by Associated Press journalists. It is part of a Taliban effort to exploit strict NATO rules against endangering innocent lives to impede the allied advance through the town in Helmand province, 360 miles southwest of Kabul.

Two more NATO service members were killed in the Marjah operation Wednesday, the alliance said without identifying them by nationality. Their deaths brought to six NATO service members and one Afghan soldier who have been killed since the attack on Marjah, the hub of the Taliban’s southern logistics and drug-smuggling network, began Saturday. About 40 insurgents have been killed, Helmand Gov. Gulab Mangal said.

During Wednesday’s fighting, Marines and Afghan troops “saw sustained but less frequent insurgent activity,” mostly small-scale attacks, NATO said.

NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay saids most of the objectives have been achieved. “Perhaps the pocket in the western side of Marjah still gives freedom of movement to the Taliban, but that is the extent of their movement,” he said.

This is the biggest offensive since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, and a test of President Barack Obama’s strategy for reversing the rise of the Taliban while protecting civilians.

As Marines and Afghan soldiers press their offensive, they have been forced to hold their fire because insurgents are shooting from inside or next to mud-walled compounds where civilians are present — and restraint slows their advance.

Brig. Gen. Mohiudin Ghori, the brigade commander of Afghan troops in Marjah, said in some cases women and children may have been ordered to stand on a roof or in a window of buildings where Taliban fighters are shooting.

Ghori said troops have to decide between firing on insurgents among civilians, or advance much more slowly to keep women and children out of the crossfire.

“They are trying to get us to fire on them and kill the civilians,” Ghori said.

Journalists embedded with the Marines have seen such cases: a neighborhood is alive with children, then the next minute the streets are empty and gunshots ring out. As the troops advance, children reappear, peering and grinning through half-closed doors.