Afghans Plant Flag and Their Hopes

New York Times
MARJA, Afghanistan — The black, red and green flag of Afghanistan was hoisted over the center of this onetime Taliban stronghold on Thursday, as Afghan officials symbolically claimed control after a major American-led military offensive.

While this city has emerged from the worst of the fighting, there were reports of scattered battles to the north of Marja, and American and Afghan troops continued to pursue Taliban militants. The militaries now face formidable challenges in securing the city enough for the government to begin to provide the services that it hopes will win people’s loyalty.

Residents who fled began to return, and some markets reopened Thursday. But there is little food because the major road into Marja is still mined, and the city remains a dangerous labyrinth of buried bombs, booby traps and pockets of insurgents.

With Afghan soldiers, tribal elders and residents of Marja looking on at the flag raising, the governor of Helmand Province, which includes Marja, and a top Afghan Army officer promised to restore security and stability to the city and to transform it from a bastion of the Taliban into a “symbol of peace.”

The officer, Gen. Sher Muhammad Zazai, the Afghan Army’s top commander in the Marja campaign, said the operation’s military goals were “almost achieved,” and he promised residents that the Taliban would no longer pose a threat to the area. Marja, a city of about 80,000 near the Pakistani border, had been a Taliban enclave for nearly three years.

But Gen. Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, said at a news conference in Kabul that it could take up to a month for troops to defuse bombs and rout the remaining fighters. Sporadic fighting and resistance could last even longer, adding to the difficulties of setting up a fully functional local government. American military officials have described the battle for Marja as part of a larger campaign, political as much as military, to weaken the Taliban.

The governor of Helmand, Gulab Mangal, who attended the ceremony here, said that troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force would remain in the area until security was restored and that they would not allow Marja to fall again to the Taliban. He promised that reconstruction projects would begin soon and that President Hamid Karzai and the Afghan government would run the city better than the Taliban had.

“What did they do for you people?” Mr. Mangal said at the ceremony, which took place near the site of the new government offices. “Are there any schools, clinics being built by the Taliban? Are they helping you?”

Coalition officials, trying to quickly restore government services, have begun to set up schools and hire employees to fill jobs in the district government.

Afghan officials also expressed their condolences over the civilians who were killed or wounded in the offensive, which began on Feb. 12 and was the largest military campaign since the invasion in 2001. But Mr. Mangal said it was a “great achievement” that so few civilians had been killed.

The military warned of the offensive for weeks in an effort to drive away Taliban militants and keep civilian casualties to a minimum. But the Afghan human rights commission said that 28 civilians had nonetheless been killed in the fighting. At least 12 service members in the NATO force, including 8 Americans, have been killed during the campaign.

On Thursday, some shop owners complained that their goods had been stolen while they were away, and they said that they wanted compensation.

As residents watched the flag raising on Thursday, some expressed mixed feelings about the change of power. They said that the Taliban had provided order and security and that the Afghan Army now needed to prove that it could open schools, clear mines and explosives from the roads and fields, and keep the population safe.

One shopkeeper, Baz Muhammad, 25, said he had returned to Marja after fleeing and staying away for 10 days during the fighting. He said that he welcomed the arrival of Afghan forces but that he was leery of foreign troops. He said he would support the return of the Taliban if NATO troops overstepped their bounds.

“People are saying they will raid our houses at night and they will kill us or detain us,” Mr. Muhammad said.

Juma Gul, 20, said his family had remained in the city even after his grandfather was shot and killed in front of his home.

“The operation was painful and full of miseries for our family,” Mr. Gul said, adding that he wanted to see the troops leave as soon as possible. “For us, they are not useful. We don’t want them to stay in Marja. We want them to leave. For us, both the Taliban and Marines are the same. They are fighting and killing us. We don’t want either.”

NATO said Thursday that two service members had died in southern Afghanistan — one on Wednesday when an improvised explosive device blew up, and the other on Thursday from small arms fire. A statement from NATO said neither service member died as part of the Marja campaign.