ABOARD USS PELELIU, Oct 30: The 2,200 US Marines aboard a three-vessel expeditionary force off the coast off Pakistan say they are ready to intervene in Afghanistan at just six hours notice.

“Our mission has been to be prepared for a variety of missions that have been passed to us from the CINC (commander-in-chief) and that’s exactly where we are,” said Captain William Jezierski, commander of the US ships carrying marines of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

“We’re able to form a mission on short notice, up to six hours,” Jezierski said.

“In terms of our overall planning and readiness we’re exactly where we want to be to be able to support CINC’s needs,” he said.

“We were the first amphibious force on the scene and we’re the (only) amphibious force on the scene.”

“If there’s an expeditionary amphibious role out there it’s going to be us that’s doing the mission,” Jezierski said.

The expeditionary force, the basic operating unit of the marine corps, had been training for and supporting Operation Enduring Freedom since arriving in the northern Arabian Sea in late September.

He confirmed that marines recovered a downed helicopter last week but declined to give any details of specific operations in Afghanistan or surrounding countries.

The Pentagon acknowledged that a Marine helicopter, recovering a damaged Army Blackhawk chopper, was fired upon in Pakistan.

Two Army Rangers were killed when their helicopter tried to land at an undisclosed location in Pakistan.

US military ground rules prevent reporting anything the marines do off the ship, part of a taskforce in the Arabian Sea that also includes three aircraft carriers that began intensive missions against Afghanistan on October 7.

Aircraft based on the Peleliu have been flying an average of 16 helicopter and Harrier jet sorties each day. Flight operations typically last 12 hours a day.

“We’re looking at 30 straight days of flight operations,” said Captain Dennis DuBard of the marine flagship the Peleliu, a 250-metre ship resembling an aircraft carrier.

Reporters on board saw around two dozen marines returning to the ship on two helicopters shortly before sunset on Monday. Some were carrying M16-A2 rifles and sniper rifles as they returned from what could have been either a training or a support mission.

Colonel Thomas Waldhauser, senior marine on board, sums up the task of the marines as “rapid response, at night, from over the horizon, from a sea based platform”.

The Peleliu, which is as long as three football fields and 20 storeys high, carries 23 helicopters, including Cobra attack helicopters and CH46 Sea Knights used for carrying troops and cargo. It also has six Harrier jump jets.

“They give us a big punch in terms of close air support,” Waldhauser said of the Harriers.

“We have a different purpose in life. We don’t do Private Ryan with 2,000 Marines. We are an enabling force to open the door for others,” Jezierski said, referring to the film of the World War II D-Day landings in Nazi-occupied France.

Two floors below the flight deck is a huge storage deck packed with some 100 vehicles ranging from field ambulances, Avenger missile systems and motorbikes to light armoured vehicles ready to be moved at a moment’s notice by the three landing craft docked just inside the massive hatches at the back of the vessel.

There are enough supplies and ammunition on board the ships, including the smaller Dubuque and Comstock, for up to 15 days of combat.—AFP