Military Assaults

By any standard, it was a disastrous day for an important U.S. ally in Afghanistan. First, three German soldiers died in an unusually fierce battle with insurgents, then German troops accidentally killed six Afghan soldiers apparently coming to their aid. The chaotic chain of events in the northern province of Kunduz, detailed by Afghan and NATO officials Saturday, a day after the fact, could further undermine German public backing for the conflict....

A senior Al Qaeda operative being hunted in the December bombing of a U.S. base used by the CIA in Afghanistan was among those killed in a missile strike in Pakistan's tribal area, U.S. officials said Wednesday. Hussein Yemeni, an Al Qaeda bomb expert and trainer, is believed to have been among more than a dozen people killed in the strike last week in Miram Shah, the largest town in North Waziristan, the officials said. Yemeni is thought to have had a major planning role in the Dec. 30 suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed seven CIA employees and contractors and a Jordanian intelligence officer, a counter-terrorism official said.

Predicting that the level of U.S. casualties in the ongoing fight to win control of the southern Afghan town of Marja will be "tough" to bear, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said Sunday that the assault was just the beginning of a 12- to 18-month campaign to wipe out safe havens for the Taliban and other Islamic militants. "These types of efforts are hard, and they're hard all the time," Petraeus said. "I don't use words like 'optimist' or 'pessimist,' I use 'realist.' . . . We're in Afghanistan to ensure it cannot once again be a sanctuary for the kinds of attacks that were carried out on 9/11."

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Nawa, Afghanistan -- Backed by fighter jets and attack helicopters, U.S. Marines and Afghan troops closed in on an insurgent-ridden sector of Marja on Sunday, the ninth day of a coalition bid to wrest control of the southern Afghan town from the Taliban. The fighting, concentrated in northwestern Marja, took place amid what the North Atlantic Treaty Organization called "determined resistance" from holdout fighters in various locations in and around the town.

Intelligence reports and a new flurry of roadside bombs suggest that Taliban fighters pushed from their sanctuary of Marja are trying to return to communities they fled last year, Marine commanders said Saturday. As the Marja offensive continued, Marine Lt. Col. Matt Baker, commander of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, said that in recent days more roadside bombs have been found in the "green zone" of Nawa near the bazaar and the district government center. Before Marines descended on sprawling Helmand province in southern Afghanistan last summer, Taliban fighters controlled Nawa, extorting money from merchants, closing its school and clinic and killing anyone who opposed them.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday made an emotional appeal for coalition troops to strive to prevent civilian deaths as a major offensive in the south by U.S., British and Afghan troops entered its second week. The president's remarks, in a speech to Afghan lawmakers, came as Western military officials announced that troops involved in the fighting for the Taliban stronghold of Marja had shot and killed an Afghan man a day earlier, mistakenly believing he was menacing a patrol with a makeshift bomb.

Hundreds of Afghan men walked for miles over dusty roads Saturday to hear the Marines explain those angry sounds of war coming from the Taliban stronghold of Marja. Nearly 400 elders, farmers and tradesmen attended the open-air meeting called by their tribal leaders. In the distance, artillery boomed and Hellfire missiles exploded as the Marine-led assault on Marja entered its first full day. For the U.S., the meeting was part of a strategy to move quickly from the fighting to the establishment of at least the beginnings of a government that answers to President Hamid Karzai, not the Taliban.

The Pakistani army Sunday was investigating reports that Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mahsud may have been killed in a drone strike last month. If confirmed, the militant's death could deal insurgents a severe setback in their battle against the government. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said Mahsud, 28, was wounded Jan. 17 in a U.S. airstrike that targeted two cars in North Waziristan, a largely Taliban-controlled tribal region along the border with Afghanistan. Abbas said intelligence agents are investigating a report on state television that Mahsud was killed in the airstrike and buried four days ago in the tribal district of Orakzai.

Even as Israel defended its handling of last year's military offensive in the Gaza Strip, officials said Friday that the government was considering heeding international calls to open a new inquiry of its army's actions. Officials cautioned that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made no final decision and that his Cabinet remained divided. Israel had flatly rejected calls for an independent inquiry and insisted that its internal military investigation of the Gaza operation was sufficient.

One of Al Qaeda's top military strategists in Yemen was reportedly killed Friday along with five other militants in airstrikes targeting two vehicles in the country's northeastern mountains, according to officials and news agencies. The operation by the Yemeni air force was the latest in a string of attacks on Al Qaeda strongholds and the terrorist network's key operatives. The government, which has been guided by U.S. intelligence in the past, has yet to capture or kill the group's two leaders, but Friday's strikes were an indication that Al Qaeda faces increasing pressure.