CAIRO — As US troops are pushing deep into Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan, the growing public resentment against foreign forces are threatening to turn their mission into a fiasco. "We Muslims don't like them," Hajji Taj Muhammad, a villager from Marja, a town west of Helmand province, told The New York Times Friday, July 3.

"They are the source of danger," added Muhammad, whose village was bombed by US-led forces two months ago, leaving many civilians dead.

Anti-US sentiments are running high in the southern provinces over the non-stop NATO airstrikes, that in many times missed their targets to kill civilians.

"They come here just to fight, not to bring peace," Allah Nazad, a farmer who left his home in Helmand, said.

The resentment is also fueled by night home raids and women searches by foreign troops.

"The people are very scared of the night raids," said Spin Gul, a local farmer.

"When they have night raids, the people join the Taliban and fight."

Hamza, an Afghan farmer, vowed to fight US troops if they raided his house.

"I will not allow them," he said. "I will fight them to the last drop of blood."

These feelings are expected to stand as a stumbling bloc in face of the US-led pushing deep into Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan.

Thousands of US troops launched their biggest offensive in southern Afghanistan on Thursday.

A US soldier was killed Thursday, causing the US troops their first fatality.

A top US commander admitted Friday that they are facing tough resistance across the restive province.

"There is a hell of a fight going on in the southern quarter of the sector," Brigadier General Larry Nicholson told Agence France Presse Friday, on arrival at Garmsir, a town along the Helmand River.

Mistrust 

The trigger-happy behavior of the foreign troops has also pushed many Afghans to join the Taliban ranks.

"Now there are more people siding with the Taliban than with the government," Abdul Qadir Noorzai, head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission in southern Afghanistan, told the Times.

Many locals also complain that the West-backed Afghan government has no presence in their areas, while the Taliban have.

"People look at the coalition also as the enemy, because they have not seen anything good from them in seven or eight years," said Hajji Abdul Ahad Helmandwal, a district council leader from Nadali in Helmand Province.

Yet mistrust of the government remains so strong that even if the Taliban were defeated militarily, the government and the US troops would find the population reluctant to cooperate.

"These people will still not trust the government," Hajji Abdullah Jan, the leader of the provincial council of Helmand, said.

"Even if security is 100 percent, it will take time because the government did not keep its promises in the past."