The United States will send some 300 Marines to Afghanistan's southern Helmand province to train, advise and assist Afghan security forces, who have been struggling to drive Taliban insurgents out of the opium-rich region.

U.S. Navy Capt. Bill Salvin, a spokesman for the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, said the Marines will begin deploying this year and will remain in the province for nine months, where they will work with the Afghan army and militarized national police, ABC news reported on Sunday. 

The US and NATO formally concluded their combat mission in Afghanistan at the end of 2014, but thousands of troops remain in the country, where they train and assist Afghan forces and carry out counterterrorism operations.

The Taliban are battling Afghan forces on a number of fronts, and the fighting has been particularly intense in Helmand, where the insurgents have repeatedly assaulted the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, in recent months.

Source: MENA