Helmand Province

Weighing 70 tons, traveling up to 45 mph and possessed of a smash-mouth name, the Assault Breacher Vehicle is the Marine Corps' latest answer to a perennial problem of offensive warfare: how to push through the barriers and booby traps of an enemy's outer defenses. Over the decades, Marines have used various strategies to breach defenses, involving heavy vehicles or, in some cases, sending Marine engineers into minefields to set, by hand, line charges loaded with explosives. "Breaching is always the hardest part of an assault," said Sgt. Carl Hewett, a breacher operator stationed here.

Chad Regelin surprised his parents at dinner one night in 2006 by announcing that he was joining the Navy. Regelin, of the small Northern California community of Anderson, had been employed by a construction company since he graduated from high school a few months earlier. Working with a road crew, he had become interested in explosives, he told his parents. He planned to enroll in the Navy's explosive ordnance disposal school and learn how to dismantle bombs. "We were like, 'what?

It was an unusual job even for the Seabees, the U.S. Navy's construction forces trained to hold a hammer in one hand and a Beretta M9 in the other. First, the team selected to build barracks high in the mountains of Afghanistan consisted of eight women, who are all stationed at Naval Base Ventura County. And second, the women completed the job far ahead of schedule. Beating deadline made up for long days and freezing nights in tents without plumbing, building four 20-by-30-foot structures, said Gafayat Moradeyo, the mission commander.

It was an unusual job even for the Seabees, the U.S. Navy's construction forces trained to hold a hammer in one hand and a Beretta M9 in the other. First, the team selected to build barracks high in the mountains of Afghanistan consisted of eight women, who are all stationed at Naval Base Ventura County. And second, the women completed the job far ahead of schedule. Beating deadline made up for long days and freezing nights in tents without plumbing, building four 20-by-30-foot structures, said Gafayat Moradeyo, the mission commander.

The U.S. Marines and Afghan army plan a massive assault on Taliban fighters in Marja, the last community under Taliban control in a sprawling, lawless region once dominated by the insurgency, a top Marine said Wednesday. "We are going to gain control," Col. George "Slam" Amland told reporters. "We are going to alter the ecosystem considerably." Amland, deputy commander of Marine forces in southern Afghanistan, would not discuss the timing of the assault or how many thousands of troops would be involved.

Marines tell of snipers who fire from "murder holes" cut into mud-walled compounds. Fighters who lie in wait in trenches dug around rough farmhouses clustered together for protection. Farmers who seem to tip the Taliban to the outsiders' every movement , often with signals that sound like birdcalls. When the Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment , deployed to the Sangin district of Afghanistan's Helmand province in late September, the British soldiers who had preceded them warned the Americans that the Taliban would be waiting nearly everywhere for a chance to kill them.

U.S. Marines and the Afghan army plan a major assault on Taliban fighters in Marja, the last main community under the militants' control in what had been a largely lawless area of the Helmand River Valley, a top Marine said Wednesday. "We are going to gain control," Col. George "Slam" Amland told reporters. "We are going to alter the ecosystem considerably." Amland, deputy commander of Marine forces in southern Afghanistan, would not discuss the timing of the assault or how many thousands of troops would be involved.

Reporting from Nawa, Afghanistan — With the military offensive to drive Taliban fighters from their sanctuary in Marja continuing, the Marines are moving to prevent the Taliban from returning to other communities in Helmand Province. Lt. Col. Matt Baker, commander of the 1st battalion, 3rd Marine regiment, said that intelligence reports and the sudden change in the placement of roadside bombs suggest that the Taliban are trying to return to the places from which they fled last year when Marines descended on the sprawling province in southern Afghanistan.

A bomb blast killed two Marines in Afghanistan's south, where thousands of American troops have deployed in a massive operation to oust Taliban fighters from the country's opium poppy region, officials said Sunday. About 4,000 Marines moved into Helmand province this month, the largest Marine operation in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. They have met little head-on resistance but remain vulnerable to guerrilla tactics such as suicide and roadside bombings.

The U.S. Marines and Afghan army plan a massive assault on Taliban fighters in Marja, the last community under Taliban control in a sprawling, lawless region of Afghanistan once dominated by the insurgency, a top Marine said Wednesday. "We are going to gain control," Col. George "Slam" Amland told reporters. "We are going to alter the ecosystem considerably." Amland, deputy commander of Marine forces in southern Afghanistan, would not discuss the timing of the assault or how many thousands of troops would be involved.

Christmas Day was painful for Leslie Frokjer. That morning, she stepped away from her family briefly and tearfully reread her husband's last, loving letter, sent from Afghanistan just days before he died. It didn't get easier when she emerged from her bedroom to be with her parents, grandparents and 2-month-old son. Looking into the baby's eyes, she was reminded again of her husband and that her boy will never know his father or spend a Christmas at his side. Marine Sgt. Chad Frokjer was killed June 30 when he stepped on an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, on the Pakistani border.

Pentagon officials said Thursday they believed a video showing four Marines urinating on the corpses of Afghans was authentic, and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta promised to investigate the incident, calling it "utterly deplorable. " As outrage over the explicit video spread, the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan said the behavior was confined to "a small group of U.S. individuals" who committed a blatant violation of military standards. Those found responsible will be "held accountable to the fullest extent," Panetta said in a statement.

Just after graduating from San Ramon Valley High School, Joshua D. Corral joined the Marine Corps, leaving behind his close-knit Bay Area hometown of Danville. A little more than a year later, he was brought back home to a hero's welcome, with more than 3,000 of his neighbors somberly saluting as a motorcade bearing his casket proceeded down flag-draped streets. His death Nov. 18 was announced at his old school's Friday night football game. In text messages, emails and hushed hallway conversations, word had already spread: The fun-loving student everyone knew as "Chachi" had been killed in combat in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, on the Pakistani border.

You can't have an infantry without F-A-N-T. Family members say Spc. Garrett A. Fant , 21, enjoyed the play on his name, telling them and his fellow soldiers that it proved he was always meant to be in the Army . Fant's older sister, Shanna Askins, said he played with G.I. Joe action figures from the age of 3. When he was 4, he wore an Army outfit and practiced saluting, and later dressed as a soldier at Halloween. Fant was killed Sept. 26 when he stepped on an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, on the Pakistani border.

A powerful Taliban car bomb killed as many as 12 Afghan policemen and a child on Sunday in a southern town where Afghan forces took over security responsibilities from Western troops less than two weeks ago. The suicide attack on an Afghan police headquarters in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, could bode ill for hopes that the Afghan police and army will be able to protect themselves and the civilian population against insurgents without...

A new dispute over civilian deaths erupted Sunday when Afghan officials claimed an errant NATO airstrike had killed 14 people, women and children among them. Western military officials said the incident in Helmand province, which took place late Saturday, was under investigation. Provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi said the airstrike was in apparent retaliation for an insurgent attack against a U.S. Marine base in the district of Now Zad. But he said the compound that was hit contained residential structures.

Armed with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and an automatic rifle, a rogue Afghan soldier attacked a group of British troops early Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, killing three of the soldiers and wounding four others before escaping. The Afghan soldier was assigned to a patrol base shared by NATO troops and the Afghan National Army in the volatile southern province of Helmand, according to NATO spokespeople and Afghanistan's Defense Ministry. Helmand is where American troops mounted a large-scale offensive earlier this year to uproot Taliban insurgents from a stronghold in the town of Marjah.

A new dispute over civilian deaths erupted Sunday when Afghan officials claimed an errant NATO airstrike had killed 14 people, women and children among them. Western military officials said the incident in Helmand province, which took place late Saturday, was under investigation. Provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi said the airstrike was in apparent retaliation for an insurgent attack against a U.S. Marine base in the district of Now Zad. But he said the compound that was hit contained residential structures.