MARJAH, Afghanistan (Dispatches) — The U.S.-led troops battling to capture a militant bastion in southern Afghanistan ran into fresh resistance Wednesday from Taliban ""human shields"" and hidden bombs.

U.S., Afghan and NATO generals spent months planning the assault on the drugs and Taliban nexus of Marjah, home to around 80,000 people in southern Afghanistan, which gave insurgents time to mine roads, buildings and trees.
Five days into Operation Mushtarak (""Together""), officers said progress has slowed because of multitudes of hidden bombs in the farming district of Helmand province that drug lords and the Taliban have controlled for years.
In Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama will convene his war cabinet to assess the first major test of his ""surge"" raising the number of foreign troops in Afghanistan to 150,000 by August in a bid to end the eight-year war.
On the ground, the top Afghan general in the battle on Wednesday accused the Taliban of hiding behind human shields.
""They have taken people hostage. Our troops have seen them putting women and children on the roofs of houses and firing from behind them,"" said General Moheedin Ghori, commander of the 4,400 Afghan troops taking part.
""We have strict orders not to fire at civilian areas,"" said Ghori.
Amnesty International says 10,000 civilians have fled the Marjah conflict zone, but that thousands more are caught up in the fighting.
Afghan and British soldiers sweeping through villages in the Nad Ali area, where Marjah is located, found bombs buried by roadsides, in fields, hanging from trees, even embedded in walls, an Afghan army colonel said this week.
""They (Taliban) have planted mines all over the place. I think even their women have their feet on the remote controls,"" one Afghan soldier told AFP Wednesday in Qari Saheb village in Nad Ali district.
In a battle update Wednesday, NATO acknowledged Taliban resilience. ""The insurgents are tactically adept, have resilience and are cunning, so continued tactical patience... is important,"" it said.
Death tolls are impossible to confirm, 30 Taliban, four NATO soldiers and at least 12 Afghan civilians have been reported killed in the battle.
But as the offensive drags on, there has been increasing frustration among ordinary Afghans over what military officials have billed as the biggest operation in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.
Baradar arrest confirmed
The arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was confirmed by the Pakistani military Wednesday.
“At the conclusion of detailed identification procedure, it has been confirmed that one of the persons arrested happens to be Mullah Baradar,” the military statement said.
On Tuesday Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik branded the news of Baradar’s arrest as “propaganda,” while speaking to reports outside Parliament.
Baradar is second in command in Afghanistan’s Taliban. He was picked up in recent days by the Pakistani intelligence service working alongside the CIA and other American officials last week, according to a report in The New York Tuesday Tuesday.
Taliban, Afghan envoy’s meet
According to a report by the Associated Press a Maldives government spokesman says delegations representing the Taliban and the Afghan government held talks in the Maldives at the end of January.
Spokesman Mohamed Zuhair said Wednesday the delegation, each consisting of 11 members, held three days of face-to-face talks on finding a peaceful solution to the Afghan conflict.
Zuhair said that the Maldives government was not directly involved in the talks.

Photo: An American Marine walked past an Afghan cemetery in Marja on Tuesday. (Photo: David Guttenfelder/AP)