The US offensive in Afghanistan is being tested by the Taliban's 'guerrilla tactics' [AFP]

"We knew this summer was going to be tough fighting ... we still have a long way to go," Obama told Britain's Sky News channel in an interview on Saturday.

The southern province of Helmand is the focus of the current operation where thousands of extra US marines have been brought in to drive out the Taliban fighters.

Marines are concentrated in the southern tip of Helmand province, around the districts of Garmsir, Khanashin and Nawa.

US special forces are also working with Afghan commandos around the Baramsha border crossing with Pakistan, in an attempt to cut off the Taliban's main supply route.

Taliban territory

Since the start of July, 40 foreign soldiers have died, including four killed "as a result of improvised explosive device (IED) strikes from insurgents" on Saturday, officials said.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said on Sunday: "We have been successful. The enemy has been suffering heavy casualties.

"It is a guerrilla war and those are our tactics. We will resist them in Helmand, and will attack them all over Afghanistan."

A high-ranking government source in Helmand said that the offensive was proceeding slowly, and in central Helmand, the enemy was in fact much stronger.

Diplomacy and development

Obama said Afghanistan's police and army needed development after the poll [AFP]

President Obama said the US and its allies needed to combine their military efforts in Afghanistan with diplomacy and development "so that Afghans feel a greater stake and have a greater capacity to secure their country".

After Afghanistan's planned election next month, "we need to start directing our attention to how do we create an Afghan army? An Afghan police? How do we work with the Pakistanis effectively so that they are the ones who are at the forefront of controlling their own countries?" Obama said.

Helmand province, where the US is joined by around 6,000 British forces, is the source of most of Afghanistan's opium crop - the world's largest - which finances the Taliban.

Zahir al Azimy, an Afghan defence ministry spokesman, said: "Once we take over an area where there is poppy cultivation, we cut off the Taliban's revenue."

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