Newly Deployed Marines to Target Taliban Bastion - Greg Jaffe, Washington Post.

Days after President Obama outlines his new war strategy in a speech Tuesday, as many as 9,000 Marines will begin final preparations to deploy to southern Afghanistan and renew an assault on a Taliban stronghold that slowed this year amid a troop shortage and political pressure from the Afghan government, senior US officials said. The extra Marines will be the first to move into the country as part of Obama's escalation of the eight-year-old war. They will double the size of the US force in the southern province of Helmand and will provide a critical test for Afghan President Hamid Karzai's struggling government and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy.

"The first troops out of the door are going to be Marines," Gen. James T. Conway, the Corps' top officer, told fellow Marines in Afghanistan on Saturday. "We've been leaning forward in anticipation of a decision. And we've got some pretty stiff fighting coming." The Marines will be quickly followed by about 1,000 US Army trainers. They will deploy as early as February to speed the growth of the Afghan army and police force, military officials said...

More at The Washington Post.