The seizure of the Afghan Taliban’s top military leader in Pakistan represents a turning point in the U.S.-led war against the militants, U.S. officials and analysts said.

The arrest of mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar represents the most significant Taliban capture since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a senior Obama administration official said Tuesday.

Baradar has been a close associate of Osama bin Laden’s and is seen as the No. 2 figure in the Afghan Taliban, behind Mullah Mohammed Omar.

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Taliban fighters stepped up counterattacks Monday against Marines and Afghan soldiers in the militant stronghold of Marjah, slowing the allied advance to a crawl despite Afghan government claims that the insurgents are broken and on the run.

Taliban fighters appeared to be slipping under cover of darkness into compounds already deemed free of weapons and explosives, then opening fire on the Marines from behind U.S. lines.

Also on Monday, NATO said five civilians were accidentally killed and two wounded by an airstrike when they were mistakenly believed to have been planting roadside bombs in Kandahar province, east of the Marjah offensive.

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Helicopter-borne U.S. Marines and Afghan troops swooped down on the Taliban-held town of Marjah before dawn on Saturday, launching a long-expected attack to re-establish government control and undermine support for the militants in their southern heartland.

The attack on Marjah climaxed the biggest joint Afghan-international offensive of the war and is the largest combat operation since President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 U.S. reinforcements here last December to turn the tide of the war.

Marine commanders say they expect between 400 to 1,000 insurgents to be holed up inside this southern Afghan town of 80,000 people in Helmand province, including more than 100 foreign fighters. Marjah is the biggest southern town under Taliban control and the linchpin of the militants’ logistical and opium-smuggling network.

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United States and Afghanistan army are preparing a big offensive in Helmand province, fortress of talibans in south Afghanistan. Financial Times reports today. The top USA military believe that at least 1700 rebels hiding in Marjah.

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http://www.corriere. … /1-A_000080184.shtml

More than 2.000 people of karen ethnicity have fled from their villages in eastern Myanmar, ex Burma, after a series of bloody attacks by Government troops this week. Free Burma Rangers reported it today, a group that provides humanitarian assistance to refugees in Myanmar.

According group, troops have killed many karen, fired houses, arrested villagers of villages and forced others to forced works from last January 17.

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http://it.reuters.co … MIE60M02220100123[/r