Almost 4,000 US Marines pushed into the Helmand River valley in southwestern Afghanistan on Thursday morning to try to take back the region from Taliban, whose control of poppy harvests and opium smuggling in Helmand provides major financing for the Afghan insurgency.

Meanwhile, Pakistan said it had deployed troops near its 1,600-mile border with Afghanistan to seal off a potential escape route for insurgents fleeing the US advance.

The Marine Expeditionary Brigade leading the operation represents a large number of the 21,000 additional troops that US President Barack Obama ordered to Afghanistan earlier this year amid the Taliban’s increasing domination in much of the country. The operation is the first major push in southern Afghanistan by the newly bolstered American force.

Shortly after the offensive began, a US military spokeswoman said insurgents had captured a US soldier in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday. Capt Elizabeth Mathias said the soldier was not part of the offensive in Helmand, but gave no further details.

Helmand is one of the deadliest provinces in Afghanistan where Taliban fighters have practised sleek, hit-and-run guerrilla warfare against the British forces based there.

The British Defence Ministry said on Thursday that two British soldiers had been killed on Wednesday in a roadside bomb attack in Helmand and six foreign soldiers had been injured in the attack. The fatalities brought to 171 the number of British troops killed since the toppling of the Taliban Government in late 2001.

In recent weeks, British troops have been setting up “blocking positions”, apparently to help stop the flow of insurgents during the main military operation and to establish greater security before the presidential election in August.

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