Marjah, Afghanistan Resistance is waning in a major NATO offensive against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, the nation's officials said Monday, a day after 12 civilians died in a rocket attack by coalition troops."Coalition forces are clearing mines and roadside bombings, and facing only scattered resistance" from the Taliban, said Zahir Azimi, the Afghan defense spokesman.
The troops met almost no resistance on Monday, unlike Sunday, said Hanif Atmar, the Afghan minister of interior affairs.
"Progress is being made on all fronts," he said.
However, CNN's Atia Abawi, who is embedded with Marines in Marjah, said the coalition forces were still battling militants, facing sporadic gunfire.
About 15,000 Afghan and NATO forces are taking part in Operation Moshtarak, the biggest offensive since the Afghan war started in 2001. The assault aims to wrest control of the town of Marjah and surrounding areas from the Taliban.
"The operation is being conducted at the request of the Afghan government and the governor of Helmand," said Master Sgt. Jeff Loftin, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
Forces were in the "clearing phase" of the operation, Loftin said in a statement Monday.
Afghan and NATO troops also discovered 5,500 pounds of explosives and seized a Taliban commander responsible for small arms ambushes and roadside attacks on troops, according to Loftin.
Forces were facing primarily small arms fire, he said. Several insurgents have been killed or detained and some coalition troops have suffered injuries, he said.
Loftin did not specify the number of militants and troops injured or killed as of Monday.
Over the weekend, provincial spokesman Dawoud Ahmadi said 27 Taliban fighters were killed. A Taliban spokesman for the Marjah area disputed the numbers and said there had been six Taliban casualties, while militants had killed 192 troops. The Taliban has often inflated casualty figures in the past.
The UK military spokesman hailed the operation on Sunday, saying that the situation is stabilizing.
"It is by no means over and there is absolutely no complacency," said Maj. Gen. Gordon Messenger. "People realize that the threat is very alive and out there, but so far it's going very well."
British troops are fighting in Helmand province alongside Afghan forces. Two British soldiers were killed in separate roadside bombings while on vehicle patrol in the province, but the deaths are not related to the operation, the international alliance said.
"The IED is the biggest threat to our troops and it's something these guys are living with minute by minute," Messenger said.
The declaration of success comes a day after 12 Afghan civilians were killed by two rockets fired by coalition forces that missed their intended target as the Taliban showed stiff resistance.
At a news conference Monday, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal reiterated the push to protect civilians.
"When President Karzai approved the conduct of this operation, he gave us some very specific guidance, and that guidance was to continue to protect the people of Afghanistan," McChrystal said.
A day earlier, McChrystal apologized for the civilian deaths, and said he had conveyed his sentiments to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
"It's regrettable that in the course of our joint efforts, innocent lives were lost," he said in a statement.
Helmand is a bastion of pro-Taliban sentiment and full of the opium used to fund the insurgency. Marjah, a region known as the heroin capital of Afghanistan, is where the Taliban has set up a shadow government.
The Moshtarak operation also includes securing Kandahar and providing support to the government and police there, Messenger said.
More on Operation Moshtarak from Afghanistan Crossroads blog
Officials said they did not know how many Taliban fighters remained in the Marjah region of Helmand province, but think they may be in the hundreds -- some of them holed up in civilian compounds."It is not unusual for the Taliban to melt away to regroup. The threat is still present in the area that they might come back, and our troops are well aware of that," Messenger said.CNN's Atia Abawi, Nic Robertson, Frederik Pleitgen, Barbara Starr and Per Nyberg and journalist Mati Matiullah contributed to this report.
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