The Afghan national flag was raised Thursday in Marjah town centre as civilian authorities took over responsibility for the former Taliban stronghold from Afghan and NATO forces.
Combined forces have killed around 100 Taliban fighters since the start of Operation Mushtarak - a Dari word for "together" - in Helmand province on February 13, an Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman said Thursday, DPA reported
Gulab Mangal, the provincial governor for the southern province of Helmand, who was flanked by Afghan and NATO military officials, raised the flag in the centre of Marjah, a town in Helmand's Nad Ali district on Thursday morning.
The ceremony to officially mark the handover was held in a new building amid tight security.
"After this there will be security, there will be work and there will be governance," the governor told the gathering.
Haji Zaman, a native of the southern region who has lived for around 15 years in Germany, was introduced to the locals as the chief of the newly established district of Marjah, which is yet to be approved by the country's parliament.
"I am at your service, but I need your cooperation," Zaman told the gathering.
A total of 15,000 Afghan and NATO troops began the operation nearly two weeks ago in Marjah and Nad Ali, one of the Taliban's main bastions in the region and the biggest opium market in the country. The offensive was the largest of its kind since the ouster of the Taliban regime in late 2001.
Afghan and NATO officials said that they cleared around 80 per cent of Marjah and a large swath of Nad Ali of insurgents, but roadside bombs and booby traps have hampered their advance.
Around 1,500 Afghan police, mostly deployed from the capital Kabul, were to take control of Marjah from the combined forces within two weeks, after which local residents were to be trained as police to take charge, officials said.
"Bazaars, shops ... are gradually opening and more and more Afghans are aware that it is safer particularly in Nad Ali, but also with daily improvement in Marjah," General Eric Tremblay, a NATO spokesman, told a press conference in Kabul on Thursday.
The combined forces have killed around 100 Taliban fighters and captured 50 others during the offensive in Marjah and Nad Ali areas, General Zahir Azimi, Defence Ministry spokesman, told the same press conference.
At least three Afghan soldiers and 13 NATO troops have been killed.
A total of 28 Afghan civilians, including 13 children, were killed and 70 others were injured in the first 12 days of the operation, mostly by NATO and Afghan national forces, according to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. Afghan and NATO forces put the civilian death toll at 16.
Nearly 3,500 families - 20,000 people - fled the area before or after the offensive, which was public knowledge for several weeks in advance.
The operation was the first major test of a new US strategy. There are around 113,000 international troops currently stationed in Afghanistan. The US and other countries participating in the NATO-led security force plan to send up to 40,000 additional troops by the summer in a bid to turn the tide of the eight-year war.
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