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Times Online:

A British soldier died as more than 15,000 troops launched the biggest military offensive in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taleban in 2001.

The soldier from 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards was killed by an explosion while on patrol in a Jackal vehicle in Nad Ali, Helmand province, in the early stages of Operation Moshtarak, the Ministry of Defence said.

The announcement came as army chief said the surge into the district of Marjah, the last major Taleban stronghold just south of Nad Ali, is going “as well as it could have done”.

At least 20 Taleban fighters were killed and 11 arrested as troops seized 11 of the 13 target locations, officials said. One US Marine died in small arms fire.

Two hours before dawn wave upon wave of helicopters ferried the first of more than 15,000 Nato-led troops – including 1,200 British soldiers – into the area.

Within hours US Marines and Afghan troops have crossed a major canal that into the northern entrance to Marjah town, where up to 1,000 Taleban insurgents are thought to be holed up among the population of 80,000.

British soldiers were flown into the neighbouring Nad Ali district, followed by tanks and combat engineering units.

Major General Gordon Messenger, the chief of the defence staff’s spokesman, said Operation Moshtarak had already secured its “key objectives”. “There’s a real sense that the job last night went as well as it could have done,” he said.

At a briefing on Saturday at the Ministry of Defence’s Whitehall headquarters, Messenger added: “There’s no complacency – everyone understands this is the easy bit.

“The hard bit is what comes next in reassuring the public. This is all about winning the allegiance of the population. The allegiance is not won in a day it must be won over time. It cannot be forced.”

But a Taleban spokesman dismissed the Nato progress reports as “propaganda”.

“All of Marjah is still under Taleban control,” Qari Yousef Ahmadi told The Associated Press by phone. “The Taleban are there and they are fighting.”

The death of the British soldier today is the 258th for UK troops in Afghanistan. Gordon Brown’s thoughts were with the soldier’s family, a Downing Street spokesman said. “Every death in Afghanistan is a tragedy.”

Three US soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Kandahar, the southern province bordering on Helmand, but Nato said they were not part of the new campaign.

The troops’ approach was slowed down as they had to pick their way through poppy fields lined with home-made bombs and land mines.

One canal bridge near Marjah was so rigged with explosives that Marines erected temporary bridges to cross into the town.

Major General Nick Carter, commander of Nato troops in southern Afghanistan, said Operation Moshtarak had made a “successful insertion”.

“We’ve caught the insurgents on the hoof, and they’re completely dislocated,” he said in a briefing at the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.

General Sher Mohammad Zazai, commander of Afghan troops in the south, said the campaign had established positions in 11 of 13 targeted areas.

He said: “So far we have killed 20 armed opposition fighters. Eleven others have been detained.”

Operation Moshtarak – which means together in the local Dari language – is the first to feature Afghan forces at the forefront of the planning. The offensive also includes Canadian, Danish, French and Estonian soldiers.

The assault is part of a move to secure a 200-mile area along the Helmand river, which holds around 85 per cent of the population of Kandahar and Helmand – Afghanistan’s most violent region.

The Allies want to impose government control on rebel-held areas before US forces start to withdraw by President Barack Obama’s self-imposed 2011 deadline.

If the campaign fails, many analysts believe that the war will be lost.

Ahead of the operation Lieutenant-Colonel Matt Bazeley, the Commander of the British Engineer Group in Afghanistan, told soldiers at Camp Bastion: “We are going into the heart of darkness.”

“It is bloody dangerous out there,” he said, but added: “This is what you have been trained for”.

British forces have already suffered fatalities in the lead-up to the operation. Lance Corporal Darren Hicks from 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards was killed in an explosion on Thursday in Babaji district, just northwest of Marjah.

Troops also want to confront the region’s drug trafficking in Helmand, one of the main regions for producing opium, which is the biggest source of funding for the Taleban insurgency.

Marjah is surrounded by fertile land where poppies grow easily, and the Afghan Government’s limited presence allows the drug trade to flourish.