Taliban fighters in Afghanistan faced a vise grip from a big U.S.-led offensive in southern Afghanistan and a Pakistani troop deployment at the border to halt militants fleeing the push.The U.S. military did not immediately provide details of the fighting when it announced the push Thursday, but a Taliban spokesman said the group's fighters had killed 33 soldiers and destroyed several vehicles.
NATO forces said no casualties were reported, adding that all the Taliban claims were false. CNN could not independently verify the Taliban claims because of safety and access reasons.
About 4,000 Americans, mostly from the Marines, and 650 Afghan soldiers and police launched Operation Khanjar -- "strike of the sword" -- in the Helmand River valley, the U.S. Marines announced.
The push is the largest since the Pentagon began moving additional troops into the conflict this year, and it follows a British-led operation launched last week in the same region, the Marines said.
When President Barack Obama announced his strategy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, he said American soldiers and Marines "will take the fight to the Taliban in the south and the east, and give us a greater capacity to partner with Afghan security forces and to go after insurgents along the border."
He also said the bolstered deployment "will also help provide security" ahead of August presidential elections in Afghanistan. The Obama administration has moved about 21,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, the original front in the war launched after the 9/11 attacks.
The launch of the Helmand operation means there are now more than 13,000 members of NATO's International Security Assistance Force in the southern province, including 6,900 from the United States, 6,200 from the United Kingdom and several hundred from Denmark and Estonia.
It is also the first big move since U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal took over as the allied commander in Afghanistan in mid-June. In Washington, a senior defense official told CNN the size and scope of the new operation are "very significant."
"It's not common for forces to operate at the brigade level," the official said. "In fact, they often only conduct missions at the platoon level. And they're going into the most troubled area of Afghanistan."
Helmand province, where much of the fighting is taking place, has been a hotbed of Taliban violence in recent months. More than 30 U.S., British and Danish troops have been killed there since January.
The defense official said the operation is a "tangible indication" of the new approach that McChrystal -- a former chief of the Pentagon's special operations command -- is bringing to the nearly eight-year-old war.
"They're not just doing an offensive push to get bad guys, they're going in to hold the area and stay there," the official said. "This approach is indicative of McChrystal's philosophy: measuring success by the number of Afghans protected, not bad guys killed."
During his confirmation hearing in June, McChrystal told senators that the conflict requires a new focus on counterinsurgency to reduce violence and build support for the U.S.-led NATO alliance among Afghans.
"Although I expect stiff fighting ahead, the measure of success will not be enemy killed. It will be shielding the Afghan population from violence," he said.
The Islamic fundamentalist Taliban ruled most of Afghanistan before its allies in the al Qaeda terrorist network attacked New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Though quickly toppled after the attacks, its leaders escaped and the movement regrouped in the Afghan countryside and across the border in Pakistan.
Helmand was once known as the breadbasket of Afghanistan, but the fertile land is now used for growing poppies. Afghanistan produces over 90 percent of the world's opium, with most of that coming from the poppies in Helmand.The drug trade is an import source of income for the Taliban and major supply routes run through the province.CNN's Atia Abawi in Afghanistan, Nic Robertson in Pakistan and Pentagon Correspondent Chris Lawrence contributed to this report.
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