Presumably there are SOF shaping operations going on as well, either by JSOC or the southern commando kandak (and SF) or both, similar to the attack by commandos and SF Josh mentioned.

I agree with the above commenter that this is nothing like Garmsir, where battalion and occasionally two-battalion clearance operations have been happening once or twice a year since 2007. Since the fighting in Helmand really began in 2006 (when the Brits deployed a lone battalion to the province, compared to 13 there now), Marja has been neglected (although how recently it turned into a real sanctuary like it is now, I don’t know). I have no doubt that patrols have passed through the edges of the Marja area at various times and been hit, like in the example Josh cited. But during all those Garmsir and Gereshk operations in 2007-8, I doubt more than a platoon every got close to Marja. In 2009, during the big clearance operations in the Nawa-Nad Ali-Babaji stretch of the valley, Marja was very obviously treated as an economy of force operation, even more so than Sangin and Musa Qala and Reg, falling into a pattern of multi-brigade operations that looks very familiar from Iraq 2007-8. That is, the twin main efforts of the MEB and TFH in that Nawa-NA-Babaji area had something like 6-7 full battalions devoted to them. Sangin, Musa Qala, Now Zad, and Reg were all “hold-what-we’ve-got,” economy-of-force areas with a battalion devoted to each. Marja proper was the next rung down the economy-of-force latter: no conventional forces were devoted to it, because it was a no-go zone. Hence the operation by the commando kandak and SF advisors — that kandak is essentially RC-South’s SOF asset, and this is a common role for SOF assets on loan to corps and divisions. Think about the way ISOF and their SF advisors, sort of the equivalent to the commandos, operated in Sadr City in 2007 and other untouchable Shia areas in early 2008: they were used by corps to keep the pressure on sanctuary areas that were no-go zones for conventional areas (for either practical or political reasons).

Also, I do not think Operation Mountain Thrust is a good comparison point. It was not a targeted offensive in the way that this thing is, or the operations last summer were, at all: just a division-level name for a variety of battalion-size operations mounted roughly at the same time across four provinces. Concentrating a full brigade’s worth of combat power to clear a particular area like Marja is something that has only happened once before in Helmand, with the Brits last summer in the Babaji area. I am not saying this will be any more successful or enduring, but it represents a very dense concentration of infantry companies that is new to Afghanistan (although things just like this happened probably 20-30 times in Iraq over the years).

Even so, that doesn’t obscure a troubling fact. Five years ago, USAID was active in Marjeh. Now, it’s some pit of dark evil. What happened? How could we have let it get so bad so fast?

Now, will this be like the first Garmsir op was, just one of many in retrospect? Possibly, but it’s clearly too early to say that.