British troops expand major Afghan operation

By Peter Graff

SORKHDOZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Hundreds of British troops have seized key canal crossings in a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, military officials said on Friday, part of a new U.S.-led operation to wrest the initiative from insurgents.

The British push, one of the largest its overstretched troops have made in the Taliban heartland and key opium-producing province of Helmand, is part of a wider offensive launched by thousands of U.S. Marines on Thursday.

The Marines met little resistance on the first day of Operation Khanjar, or Strike of the Sword, the first big test of U.S. President Barack Obama's new regional strategy to defeat the Taliban and its allies and stabilise Afghanistan.

Their objective is to seize virtually all of the lower Helmand River valley, the world's biggest opium poppy-producing region, and hold the ground they win, something British-led NATO troops have so far been unable to do.

Violence in the Taliban-led insurgency is at its highest since the Taliban's ouster in 2001 and the offensive, in the short-term at least, is meant to provide a secure environment for an August 20 presidential election.

In the longer term, U.S. and NATO troops want to engage with local populations as part of a new counter-insurgency strategy under General Stanley McChrystal, appointed as the new commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan after previous conventional warfare tactics failed.

With new tactics to win over the Afghan population and new commanders in place, the U.S. military hopes the operation will mark the turning point of a war some in Washington have admitted they are not winning.

Hundreds of British soldiers have seized 13 canal crossings since Operation Panchai Palang, or Panther's Claw, began 10 days ago with an airborne assault north of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah. It is part of the overall Marine-led operation.