Almost 4,000 United States Marines, backed by helicopter gunships, pushed into the volatile Helmand River valley in southwestern Afghanistan early Thursday morning to try to take back the region from Taliban fighters whose control of poppy harvests and opium smuggling in Helmand provides major financing for the Afghan insurgency.
The Marine Expeditionary Brigade leading the operation represents a large number of the 21,000 additional troops that President Obama ordered to Afghanistan earlier this year amid rising violence and the Taliban’s increasing domination in much of the country. The operation is described as the first major push in southern Afghanistan by the newly bolstered American force.
Helmand is one of the deadliest provinces in Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters have practiced sleek, hit-and-run guerrilla warfare against the British forces based there.
Sounds like they could use some M113A3 Super Gavins for support. A battalion of armored infantry equipped with them would make a big difference. Light infantry is great…but they aren’t the only tool in the tool box. We keep having to re-learn the same lessons over and over and over again. Armored support can and will turn the tide of battle. And yes…they can operate quite successfully in that terrain.