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US marines taking part in an offensive against Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan have been attempting to take control of an area along the border with neighboring Pakistan.
The US forces, backed by the Afghan national army, moved into Baramshar on Saturday after taking the main districts of Nawa and Garamsir, as well as Khananshid, the previous day, local officials said.
"They are now present in Baramshar, which is on the border with Pakistan, a really strategic area where the Afghan president himself has repeatedly requested British troops to take control," Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, said.
About 4,000 marines, backed by Nato aircraft and a 650 Afghan force, are moving into towns across Helmand.
They have reportedly faced little resistance so far, despite the Taliban vowing that the thousands of fighters it has in the area would fight back.
Convoy blast
However, the four-vehicle convoy of a private security company did come under attack in Helmand's Gereshk district on Saturday.
One security guard was killed and four others were wounded after a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-packed vehicle near the convoy, Daud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial administration, said.
Two Afghan soldiers were also killed in a bomb blast in Musa Qala district on Friday, the interior ministry said.
Suspected Taliban fighters have also continued to strike far away from the offensive, killing at least two US soldiers in an attack on a military base in the Paktika province of eastern Afghanistan on Saturday.
'Complex attack'
Lieutenant-Commander Christine Sidenstricker, a US military spokeswoman, said that the attack on the base in Zirok district had also wounded another seven US troops and two Afghan soldiers.
"It was a complex attack that started with small-arms and indirect fire on the post, then an improvised explosive device went off," she said.
Hamidullah Zhwak, a spokesman for the local administration, said that the US casualties occurred when a fuel tanker exploded.
Zabiullah Mujaheed, a Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for Saturday's suicide blast.
"Today Hafiz Omar carried out a suicide attack with 8,000 kilos of explosives in a tanker on an American base," he told the AFP news agency.
"At the same time 100 mujahidin [fighters] attacked the base just after the explosion ... Americans suffered heavy casualties and we lost five of our fighters."
The attack came in the same area where a US soldier, who has been missing since Tuesday, is believed to have been captured by pro-Taliban fighters.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, seven policemen were killed and two others injured after their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Registan district in southern Kandahar, the interior ministry told Al Jazeera.
PHOTO CAPTION
Afghan men look on as a US Marine patrols Garmsir district in Afghanistan's Helmand province on July 3.
Al-Jazeera
