From the Registan blog.

Now that we are, finally, attacking an area we've been promising to attack since last October, the media is dutifully reporting on it. And by "reporting," I really mean "repeating whatever the nearest uniform happens to mumble about it." Because really, why should anyone there or in the home office check easily checked facts about Afghanistan? What matters is getting the story out, even if most of it is ISAF deliberately trying to spin a specific version of reality. So with that in mind, let's talk myths!

Juan Cole comments.

McClatchy's Saeed Shah reports that only about 1200 residents have fled the Afghan city of Marjah in Nad Ali district, ahead of a major NATO/ Afghan invasion planned for later this week. The city of 80,000 is controlled by some 2000 Taliban fighters and there are many heroin labs, the profits of which help to support the Taliban.

...

The refusal of locals to leave in any large numbers may be what prompted US commanders to begin telling the people of Marjah to 'stay inside their homes' and stay out of the way of the fighting. This message is a 180 degree reversal of the earlier message, that locals should leave.

Telegraph report. Of course there is no mention anywhere in the article of how many Afghan civilians have died.

Three soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan taking the British death toll above the number killed in the Falklands War. The deaths brought the total dead since operations began in October 2001 to 256.

Reuters report.

Afghan villagers should stay inside and "keep their heads down" when thousands of U.S. Marines launch a massive assault on a densely-populated district in coming days, NATO's civilian representative to Afghanistan said Tuesday.

U.S.-led NATO forces are planning one of the 8-year-old war's biggest offensives to seize Marjah, a patchwork of desert canals and opium fields that is now the last large Taliban-held bastion in Helmand, Afghanistan's most violent province.

Independent report.

The US military has not given a start date for the operation to clear insurgents from the Helmand province town of Marjah, the biggest community in the south under insurgent control. But the military has said fighting will start soon and many residents weren't taking any chances.

Reuters report.

"Forever" is a long time.

NATO forces and their Afghan allies will hold territory seized from the Taliban in an imminent major operation "forever", the commander of British forces in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province said.

BBC report.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has told a conference of the world's top defence officials in Germany that he is considering introducing conscription. The Afghan president said at the summit in Munich he wants to build an army and police force of 300,000 by 2012.

Independent report.

The bloodiest fighting in the eight-year war in Afghanistan is expected to break out this week as British troops yesterday continued to prepare for what will be the largest air assault seen since the first Gulf war in 1991.

From Rawa News.

"I have very good news for Afghans," Karzai said.

"The initial figures we have obtained show that our mineral deposits are worth a thousand billion dollars -- not a thousand million dollars but a thousand billion," he said.

He based his assertion, he said, on a survey being carried out by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), due to be completed in "a couple of months".