US Marines Launch New Offensive in Afghanistan
Published Date: 07-02-2009 12:13 PM CT
And that is our top story this midday.Hello, I'm Rosemary Shultz.US Marines have launched a new offensive in Afghanistan aimed at taking back control of some villages.Commanders say they managed to surprise the Taliban.But as the mission began, word came a US soldier in another part of Afghanistan was taken prisoner by insurgents.Tara Mergener reports from Washington.Thousands of US Marines poured into villages in southern Afghanistan... launching the first major operation in President Barack Obama's new strategy to target the Taliban.Capt. Drew Schoenmaker says, ''We dropped into a few places that nobody had been.''The goal of the mission is to take over the poppy growing areas of the country. The insurgents finance much of their activities through drug trafficking.US forces faced a few fire fights during the first day of the offensive.As it got underway, the Pentagon announced an American soldier not involved with this mission was captured by fundamentalists in the eastern part of Afghanistan.The Obama Administration calls the offensive the biggest and fastest moving one in the war's new phase. It involves nearly four thousand marines, most of whom have just been deployed to Afghanistan.Military commanders say they plan to have troops live in the villages they are entering, in order to retake control of the area from the Taliban. That group was ousted from power following the American invasion in 2001.But since then, it has managed to stage a violent comeback, especially in the southern and eastern regions of the country. Over the next month and a half, the US will send 21 thousand additional troops into Afghanistan, doubling the number of forces deployed to that region. The push comes a little under two months before the country holds presidential elections.Tara Mergener, for CBS News, Washington.
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