AP Top News at 4:49 p.m. EST

AP Top News at 4:49 p.m. EST

Fighting rages as Karzai urges restraint from NATO

MARJAH, Afghanistan — U.S. Marines and Afghan soldiers advanced through poppy fields of Marjah on Saturday under withering gunfire from Taliban fighters shooting from mudbrick homes and compounds where families huddled in terror. President Hamid Karzai urged NATO to do more to protect civilians during combat operations to secure Marjah, a southern Taliban stronghold and scene of the biggest allied ground assault of the eight-year war.