Eight US troops killed in east Afghan battle

[pakdefender]

DAWN.COM | World | Eight US troops killed in east Afghan battle

In recent months the US/NATO forces casualties have been steadiliy going up. Now there is always a price to pay in terms of men and material when prolonged wars are fought.

How many casualties is America willing to take before it either pulls out of forces from Afghanistan or starts balaming others for its predicament ( as it has already started blaming Pakistan ) ?

Some internet based military professonals have cliamed that America is in it for the long term ( what is long term by the way ? ) and the price they have paid in men and material is insignificant also that'll they'll be 'forcing their options' on Pakistan as well to accout for their own failures in Afghanistan.

So the questions is , is the US in the endgame ( not necesarily winning the game ) in Afghanistan ?

 

[Righteous_Fire]

Eight U.S. Soldiers Dead in Bold Attack in Afghanistan​

Groups of tribal militia attacked two American outposts in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, the American military said, killing eight American soldiers and two Afghan police officers in a bold attack that was the deadliest for American soldiers in months.​

The attack took place on Saturday night in the Nuristan province, a remote area that shares a border with Pakistan.

Tribal fighters staged the attacks from a village close to the outposts, small bases shared by American and Afghan forces, the military said in a statement on Sunday. The military did not say whether the outposts had been overrun.

The commander of the American unit, Col. Randy George, called the strike "a complex attack in a difficult area."

U.S. troops have had trouble there before: nine American soldiers were killed when 200 insurgents stormed their small outpost in the village of Wanat in 2008.

The governor of Nuristan province, Jamaluddin Badar, reached by telephone on Sunday, said that 11 Afghan police officers, including the district police chief, had been kidnapped in the strike. He described one of the outposts as a district police station, and identified the attackers as Taliban fighters, not tribal militia.

The attack took place in the Kamdish district in the eastern part of the province, he said. The American military statement said American forces had "effectively repelled the attack and inflicted heavy enemy casualties," but did not give the location of the attack.

Mr. Badar said the fighting left at least five dead insurgents in the area. He believed the operation was led by a Taliban commander in the area named Dost Muhammed.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahed, claimed that Taliban fighters overrran the outposts. He said Taliban fighters were holding the district police chief, and an intelligence chief hostage. He said seven Taliban fighters had been killed, and that the fighters eventually withdrew because the area came under bombardment.

The area had suffered civilian casualties in the past, and villagers there are extremely wary of American forces.

American forces had planned to pull out of the sparsely populated area, as part of a stragetic shift to place more troops in heavily populated centers. The American military statement said that plan "remained unchanged."
​

NYT

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

Its a tough WAR . If US wana win it they would have to make such compromises . However i still dont see any fruitful end to this debacle . Its a huge mess they are in .