Gen. David Petraeus began his visit by traveling in a C-130 cargo plane from the capital, Kabul, north of Kunduz province said troops with the U.S. Army 1-87, 10th Mountain Division, who would day, there was "no place (he) would rather be here", where "most of our efforts" were.
Northern parts of the country has seen an increase in fighting with the Taliban stepping up their attacks against NATO focuses on the movement places militant strongholds in the south. Petraeus said the situation in the territory of the German General Hans-Werner Fritz, commander of NATO's Regional Command North.
Eastern Afghanistan, where NATO forces are concentrated on trying to prevent insurgents from slipping in from neighboring Pakistan, an American team, have spent Christmas in almost every other day— and came to fight the rebels. Taliban in the nearby hills opened fire twice a day for fighting Out Post Badel, triggering a brief gunbattles as U.S. soldiers returned fire. There was no U.S. casualties.
Badel and other such places front-line of similar attacks almost every day.
Petraeus visits on Saturday, he brought in a territory of the NATO attacks in the south year — Marjah Taliban stronghold of Helmand province, scene of some of the heaviest recent fighting with the Taliban.
Spoke to the Marine base, praising them for improving the area, which still sees the Taliban attacks.
Marja has become a symbol of the problems faced by NATO troops in Afghanistan. More than 7,000 U.S. troops led the NATO ground invasion launched a nighttime village agricultural region in February last year to escape the rebels and cut their income from drug trafficking. NATO officials said the effort will pave the way for the Afghan government to support and start providing public services.
Marine Maj. Gen. Richard Mills, December 7 said that the battle in Marjah was "well above". But the campaign has taken longer than NATO officials had hoped, and illustrated the complexity of try to wrest control of an area where Taliban influence has remained strong.
Efforts to create a civilian government in Marja were extremely slow, and U.S. troops fought against bombs and sniper attacks an enemy that can be mixed with the local population.
Petraeus said: "We probably created expectations that were unreasonable, and we worked through this."
Still, he said, advances in Marjah and other fields has helped the way for a consensus was reached in the November NATO summit in Lisbon, where Member States are committed to Afghanistan until 2014.
If the situation Marjah was the same as earlier this year, General Petraeus said that unanimity would not have been there.
He said that when the campaign began Marjah, it was "a headquarters for the Taliban," a center for manufacturing bombs and location for the illicit drug industry.
"Now it is obviously thriving," he said. Where there was no school, there are now 1200 to attend classes.
We do not know when U.S. troops could withdraw a significant number of heavy fighting in Helmand continue elsewhere in the region, including the Sangin area, where the Marines have the British forces.
Before Marjah, Petraeus stopped at the western province of Farah, the Italian Army Alpini placed seventh.
U.S. visit General s coincided with one by the General Vincenzo Camporini, Chief of Italian. Petraeus praised the Italian soldiers in progress "that has been done in the first few months that this unit was here.
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