British troops bear brunt of south Afghan assault

BABAJI DISTRICT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - British forces in Afghanistan, mounting their largest operation of the war in parallel with a big U.S. advance, are bearing the brunt of Taliban resistance but believe the enemy are finally on the run.

Nine British soldiers have been killed in the past nine days as thousands of British troops have been mobilized in Operation Panther's Claw to clear out the Babaji district, a patchwork of irrigated farms in Helmand, Afghanistan's most violent province.

The operation is under way in parallel with operation Strike of the Sword carried out by U.S. Marines further south, in what commanders hope will be a decisive summer in the province, a heartland of the insurgency.

Major Al Steele, who led a force of scores of soldiers from the 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland on a helicopter assault deep behind Taliban lines early on Saturday morning, said British fighters were attempting to flee the Babaji district in the wake of the assault, which began last week.

But he said the fighting had been tough because the guerrillas were well prepared and considered the area north of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah to be critical.

"Just as we went into this summer with a firm plan of how we were going to conduct operations, the Taliban have done the same," Steele said.

"They aim to demonstrate not only to local nationals but to the world at large that they are still in control, and Babaji is the place they have chosen to do that," he said.

A large British force led by the Light Dragoons has been moving through the district in an attempt to clear it.

Steele said the insurgents have been able to slow the Dragoons' advance by deploying snipers and planting homemade bombs, which have caused most of the British casualties. One goal might be to turn British opinion against the war, he added.

Helmand produces the bulk of Afghanistan's opium crop, which supplies 90 percent of the world's heroin, and until last month an overstretched British-led NATO force was able to exert control over only about half of the province.

But in the past two months, the United States has sent an additional 8,500 Marines to the province, the largest element of a reinforcement strategy that will see the U.S. force in Afghanistan more than double to a projected 68,000 by year's-end.

The U.S. Marines, focusing on the south of Helmand, have freed up British troops to launch a massive operation of their own just to the north.

FAMILIES FLED

Steele's troops landed before dawn by Chinook helicopter several kilometers beyond the British front line in Taliban territory. Steele said the aim was to disrupt the fighters, to limit their ability to attack as the Taliban withdraw and the Dragoons advance.

Trekking across fields and wading through irrigation ditches by moonlight after their helicopter assault, Steele's troops occupied two large compounds overlooking roads that the fighters might use as an escape route.

The area was largely deserted apart from small groups of elderly people, with families having fled from the path of the British advance.

In one of the two compounds they occupied, the British found a number of mortar and artillery shells that had had their explosive materials removed in what the troops said they believed was a bomb-making factory and former Taliban command post.

Later, in the other compound, an old woman -- the only visible civilian -- milked a cow while the British troops sheltered from 120 degree Fahrenheit heat under pomegranate trees.

The Taliban, like the civilians appeared to have left.

"We are beginning to see a tipping point where the insurgents are seeing they are not going to hold this ground, and they are leaving."

(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)