Taliban Breach NATO Base in Deadly Clash

[ejaz007]

9 US troops killed near Pakistan border

* US-led force says 40 militants killed
* Dozens killed in suicide blast in Uruzgan province

KABUL/KANDAHAR/BUDAPEST: Nine United States soldiers have been killed in an insurgent attack on a remote American base near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan.

The attack appears to be the deadliest against US forces in Afghanistan in years. NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said militants fired machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars from homes and a mosque in the village of Wanat in the Kunar province, a mountainous region that borders Pakistan.

International and Afghan security forces killed at least 40 militants in an operation still underway in the southern province of Helmand, said the US-led coalition on Sunday.

The fighting began on Saturday after militants ambushed a joint Afghan and international security patrol in the province’s volatile Sangin district, said the coalition in a statement. “The ensuing fighting led Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF) and coalition forces to return fire and call for precision airstrikes,” it said, adding, “At least 40 militants have been killed in the last two days with over 30 enemy boats destroyed.”

Suicide blast: Also on Sunday, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded bazaar in southern Afghanistan, killing 24 people in the latest in a surge of extremist attacks. Military officials said the blast hit Uruzgan province during heavy fighting in northeastern Afghanistan between NATO-led Afghan soldiers and insurgents.

They said the suicide bomber rammed his three-wheeled motorbike into a police vehicle in an Uruzgan bazaar, adding that the explosion ripped through several shops.

“Twenty civilians and four policemen were killed in the blast in Deh Rawood, 400 kilometres southwest of Kabul,” said Uruzgan Police Chief Juma Gul Hemat, adding, “Around 27 people were also wounded in the attack.” Nobody has taken responsibility for the attack yet.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack and blamed the “enemies of Afghanistan” - a reference to Taliban and other insurgents. “Those who are sending terrorists and suicide bombers are the ones who cannot see a prosperous and free Afghanistan,” said the president in a statement.

In a separate incident, a roadside bomb killed a Hungarian soldier in Afghanistan’s Baglan province, said the Hungarian Ministry of Defence in a statement.

The ministry said explosives expert Krisztian Nemes and a local police officer had been exploring an area on the road to Kunduz. The ministry said it was unclear what caused the bomb to explode, adding that Nemes, 32, was killed on the spot. Meanwhile, unknown gunmen kidnapped an Afghan senator early on Sunday around 70 kilometres from Kabul. Government officials said it was not clear who had captured Abdul Wali, a member of the upper house of parliament, from the province of Logar. agencies

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

The purpose of the thread is to keep record of US/ISAF losses in Afghanistan. All members requested to post losses in this thread.
Regards,

 

[ejaz007]

20 killed in a suicide attack in S.Afghanistan; 40 militants killed in battle
Updated at: 0200 PST, Monday, July 14, 2008

KANDAHAR: A suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up next to a police patrol in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing 20 people, while a two-day battle sparked by an insurgent attack killed at least 40 militants, officials said.

The bombing attack in the southern province of Uruzgan also killed five police officers and wounded more than 30 others, said Juma Gul Himat, the province's police chief.

The bomber struck the police patrol at a busy intersection of Deh Rawood district, Himat said. The bombing also damaged or destroyed about nine shops in the area, he said.

Most of those killed and wounded were shopkeepers and young boys selling cigarettes and other goods in the street, Himat said.

Afghan civilians have suffered from a rash of bombings this month. About 55 civilians were killed in a massive bomb attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul on Monday, while a government commission said this week U.S. air strikes killed 47 civilians in eastern Nangarhar province on July 6.

In Helmand province, a militant attack on Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces sparked a battle that killed at least 40 militants, the coalition said in a statement.

The militants attacked the combined forces near Sangin on Saturday from ``multiple concealed and fortified positions,'' the coalition said.

20 killed in a suicide attack in S.Afghanistan; 40 militants killed in battle

 

[EagleEyes]

Now they know what Pakistan is dealing with.

Action baby. Action!

 

[pkpatriotic]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/world/asia/15afghan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
By CARLOTTA GALL
45 minutes earlier July 15, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban insurgents who attacked an American-run NATO base near the Pakistan border on Sunday numbered as many as 200 and some managed to breach the walls of the outpost in what was a well-planned attack that took the soldiers on the base by surprise, officials said Monday.

The insurgents, who were repulsed, came so close that some of their corpses were lying around the base afterwards, Tamim Nuristani, the former governor of the region said after talking to officials in the district. A Western official requesting anonymity also confirmed that the Taliban did breach part of the base.

The attack on the base in Kunar Province left nine American soldiers dead, the worst single loss for the American military in Afghanistan since June 2005 and one of the worst since the Taliban and their Al Qaeda associates were routed in late 2001.

American and NATO military officials said the attack reflected the Taliban’s resurgence from new bases in neighboring Pakistan and underscored the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, where war casualties have jumped this year.

Inside the base soldiers were hit by shrapnel from incoming missiles and bullets from insurgents who were firing from the cover of village houses within a few hundred yards of the base, several officials said. Besides the nine killed, 15 American and four Afghan soldiers were wounded in the battle. The total number of soldiers assigned to the base has not been disclosed.

The Afghan soldiers received slight bullet wounds in the fight, according to the commander of the 201st Corps, Gen. Muhammad Rahim Wardak, and one had already returned to duty.

"Quite clearly they wanted to overrun the outpost," said the Western official said of the insurgents. "It was a well planned, surprise attack," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to reveal such details of the event.

The insurgents had occupied the houses of the village of Wanat, ordered the villagers to leave, and opened fire from positions in houses within just yards of the base. The attack lasted four hours, until dozens were killed and the others were pushed back after army forces used artillery and called in airstrikes, General Wardak said.

Many of the village houses were damaged in the strikes but there were no civilian casualties because the villagers had left and gone to relatives in nearby villages, Mr. Nuristani said.

Insurgents have been present in the area for months, including Pakistani militant groups such as Laskhar-e-Taiba, a group that was originally formed to fight in Kashmir, he said. The American and Afghan army soldiers had moved into the base at Wanat just days before, after abandoning another base higher up a side valley where they had come under repeated attack from insurgents.

"But this even surprised me that so many Taliban were gathered in one place," he said.

He said some local people may have joined the militants since a group of civilians were killed in American airstrikes on July 4 in the same area. "This made the people angry," he said. "It was the same area, the airstrikes happened maybe one kilometer away from the base."

Mr. Nuristani strongly criticized those airstrikes, saying that 22 civilians had been killed. The provincial police chief later confirmed that at least 17 civilians were killed. The U.S. military said planes had struck vehicles of insurgents but has announced an investigation. Days after his comments Mr Nuristani was removed from his post.

He said that the security in the region of Nuristan and northern Kunar provinces is precarious and that insurgents have freedom of movement from the border with Pakistan through 100 kilometers of Nuristan to the district of Waygal where the base at Wanat lies. "They can bring men, weapons and cars," he said.

Local people and police have also been battling insurgents in Barg-e-Matal in another part of Nuristan, and complained that they were not getting enough assistance from the central government.

NATO officials gave little further detail of the attack Monday. "It has been quiet overnight, the insurgents had been pushed away," Captain Mike Finney, a spokesman for the NATO force in Kabul said.

* The Afghan cabinet accused the Pakistani Army and premier intelligence agency, the Inter Services Intelligence, or ISI, of being behind a recent spate of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and announced it was suspending three scheduled bilateral meetings with Pakistan.

In a resolution after its weekly meeting, the cabinet blamed the ISI and the Pakistan army for the April assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai, the beheadings of several Afghan citizens by militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas, suicide bombings and the recent execution of two women in Ghazni province.

Abdul Waheed Wafa contributed reporting from Kabul.

 

[pkpatriotic]

SAN DIEGO — Senator Barack Obama is proposing that the United States deploy about 10,000 more troops to battle resurgent forces in Afghanistan, a plan intended to shift the American military focus from the Iraq war to the marked rise in violence from the Taliban.

“As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan,” Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, wrote in an Op-Ed article published on Monday in The New York Times. “We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there.”

Mr. Obama, who is among those who maintain that Afghanistan has been neglected because of the administration’s Iraq policy, has not previously offered such a specific plan for how to strengthen troop levels in Afghanistan. His proposal comes as he prepares to visit American commanders to assess progress in Iraq and needs in Afghanistan.

He said a new round of violence on Sunday, in which nine American soldiers died in fierce fighting with the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan, underscored the military challenges ahead for the United States. He said in a news conference here, “It’s very hard for us to bolster our forces in Afghanistan when we have such a heavy presence in Iraq.”

As the Bush administration considers withdrawing additional combat troops from Iraq in September, the military needs in Afghanistan are coming into sharper focus. Mr. Obama and other Democrats have said the balance of troops in the two war zones should be adjusted. At the same time, a downturn in Iraqi violence has complicated their arguments that a surge of American troops was flawed.

“I continue to believe that we’re under-resourced in Afghanistan,” Mr. Obama said on Sunday, speaking to reporters after addressing a Latino group here. “That is the real center for terrorist activity that we have to deal with and deal with aggressively.”

He said he was not going to Iraq to promote his withdrawal plan but to gather facts.

“We have one president at a time, so I’m not going to be traveling to negotiate anything or make promises,” Mr. Obama told reporters aboard his campaign plane on Saturday evening. “I am there to listen, but there is no doubt that my core position, which is that we need a timetable for withdrawal, not only to relieve pressure on our military, but also to deal with the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and to put more pressure on the Iraqi government.”

Several Democratic supporters have criticized Mr. Obama for what they believe is a shift to the political center on a variety of issues, including the Iraq war. He addresses his critics and seeks to make clear in his Op-Ed essay for The Times that his goal to end the war, a central selling point of his primary campaign, has not changed.

“On my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war,” Mr. Obama wrote, adding: “Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been.”

 

[maqsad]

Many of the village houses were damaged in the strikes but there were no civilian casualties because the villagers had left and gone to relatives in nearby villages, Mr. Nuristani said.

He said some local people may have joined the militants since a group of civilians were killed in American airstrikes on July 4 in the same area. "This made the people angry," he said. "It was the same area, the airstrikes happened maybe one kilometer away from the base."

This is an interesting part of the article, buried in all the other meaningless mumbo jumbo. It looks like ordinary afghan civilians are supporting a guerrilla war against NATO troops. Also, none of the civilians who went to the next village tried to contact Afghan authorities warning them of the attack.

If I recall correctly when the Soviets started losing the support of the Afghan villagers in a big way was the beginning of the end as far as their occupation was concerned. The exact same scenario is being played out here except that there are no stingers involved, which means the insurgency could very well be quashed since a superpower is not supplying the militants with plane and chopper killing gadgets.

 

[roadrunner]

This is an interesting part of the article, buried in all the other meaningless mumbo jumbo. It looks like ordinary afghan civilians are supporting a guerrilla war against NATO troops. Also, none of the civilians who went to the next village tried to contact Afghan authorities warning them of the attack.

If I recall correctly when the Soviets started losing the support of the Afghan villagers in a big way was the beginning of the end as far as their occupation was concerned. The exact same scenario is being played out here except that there are no stingers involved, which means the insurgency could very well be quashed since a superpower is not supplying the militants with plane and chopper killing gadgets.

Stingers were way overrated in the Afghan-Soviet war. They played their part, but they weren't supplied until 1986, way after the Soviets had lost the war and the support of the local population.

The Soviets were not so incapable that they did not have alternative means of wiping out insurgents wholesale when they wanted to.

You have to wonder how they managed to get inside the base. It's difficult to imagine locals attacking military bases. But it is daring.

 

[maqsad]

Stingers were way overrated in the Afghan-Soviet war. They played their part, but they weren't supplied until 1986, way after the Soviets had lost the war and the support of the local population.

The Soviets were not so incapable that they did not have alternative means of wiping out insurgents wholesale when they wanted to.

You have to wonder how they managed to get inside the base. It's difficult to imagine locals attacking military bases. But it is daring.

According to a book I read, The Bear Trap, the resistance against the Soviets was based on the death from 1000 cuts strategy but before the stingers the cuts were just scratches which healed very quickly but the stingers had an incredible effect on depressing the morale of the Soviets. Also they soviets were now scared to death of using their choppers indiscriminately to mow down villages and large formations of militants since anyone could at any time just whip out a stinger and down a couple of choppers. This is straight from the horse's mouth btw. Brigadeer General Mohd Yousaf who ran the entire operation gave that as his personal opinion.

And the article does say that the military base was not properly constructed yet so it should be quite easy to just charge in under heavy cover from the snipers and shooters, why is that so puzzling?

 

[vish]

The Soviet Union pulled out of Afghanistan due to internal concerns and financial problems.

Had they stayed there a decade or so more... perhaps a lot of Afghan men, women, and children would be in some Siberian hellhole. I do not doubt the Afghan spirit, but people forget how powerful the Soviet Union was then. By the late 1980s things were radically different.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

The US is nowhere close to the state of political and economic collapse the USSR was facing, nor does it seem likely that it will anytime soon (though some are viewing the current economic crisis as possibly leading to that - I have strong doubts) despite fighting two wars and having bases the world over.

The thousand cuts strategy is not going to work with the US, at least not in the manner that it did with the USSR.

What will end the war is when the American people get fed up with it ala Iraq, and so long as the US Gov. can keep tying in OBL, AL Qaeda, Taliban, 911 and a repeat of 911, it is hard to see public opinion shifting drastically in the US on this, at least not in the medium term.

Ten years down the line, with Afghanistan little better off in reconstruction, corruption, drugs and subduing the insurgency - perhaps.

However, is the cost of ten years of chaos, death and destruction acceptable? Acceptable for the Afghans and for Pakistan, which will inevitably be affected by what happens there?

 

[maqsad]

AM, I agree with you that the US economy is nowhere near collapse, it is at the strongest it has been in all of it's history and today it is churning out more goods and services and conducting more trade than ever before in history.

I never meant to convery the 1000 cuts strategy would work because there is no superpower backing the Pashtun militants, everyone has been bought off or subdued. I simply mentioned the 1000 cuts strategy to clarify my position to RR that it didn't even work on the Soviets *UNTIL* large amounts of Afghan troops jumped ship with their weapons and joined the militants. In other words, 1000 cuts just won't "cut it" in Afghanistan but 1000 backstabs might...

The American people are nowhere near fed up with the Iraq war or the Afghanistan war. People are simply apathetic because they know there isn't a damn thing they can do about it except not sign up for an ROTC scholarship or a tour of duty. The only Americans who are upset about the war are those coming back with missing limbs, eyesight and other handicaps and those people are few and far between and are generally kept out of the press and given a little bit of money and told to be quiet and live happily. The numbers of these people are not going to grow that much because the mortality rates are so small and medical care is also much improved. There really are no visible signs of discontent in American society. The majority of Americans do realize now however that both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were bogus but because of the apathy and insulation from the gore of war nobody really cares enough to get angry and that is why the war will go on for decades at least. The government knows that too which is why you see both political parties supporting the war(s) confidently because they know that firstly the only thing Americans are likely to try to do is vote the war out and secondly it really is a minor issue, people don't like it but 99% of the population is completely numbed and apathetic. To tell you the truth I think some people in the US actually enjoy this war because of the easy kills and are signing up for the thrills, excitement, training and benefits.

Ten years from now US troops will still be in Afghanistan for sure and quite possibly in Pakistan if it is still in one piece. There isn't a thing Afghanistan or Pakistan can do about it either so the question if it is worth it is pointless since 60 years of bhangeeconomics in Pakistan has ensured a state of puppetry where one flick of the Anglo-American finger can send the Pakistani economy into chaos, example would be just shutting off the textile import subsidy. The pakistani military-industrial complex is still awash in the imperial bootlicking begging bowl culture which means the best weapons are coming from the US still, none of the bootlickers has ever even thought about indigenous manufacturing much less R&D. Can anyone seriously think that the pak economy and military is ready to snip any of it's puppet strings be taken seriously as a sovereign power? Nope, I am not optimistic. This is the fault of nobody other than Pakistanis, collectively. There needs to be a slow revolution in thought to escape from this decadent, pathetic, crippling, restricting and degrading system but the critical mass just does not seem to be there. It looks like Pakistan is not ready to clash with it's puppetmasters but the clash is drawing near...

 

[t-birds]

US troops abandon Afghan outpost

Kunar has seen some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict


US and Afghan troops have abandoned a remote village in eastern Afghanistan where militants killed nine US soldiers and wounded a dozen more on Sunday.

A statement said the outpost had been temporary and that "regular patrols" in the area would be maintained.

Afghan police are continuing to fight insurgents after the pullout on Tuesday, local officials say.

The attack caused the biggest American loss of life in battle in Afghanistan since operations began in 2001.

Nato says the rebels also suffered heavy casualties.

It did not name the attackers but there has been a sharp increase in Taleban attacks in the country, and in that region in particular, although other rebel groups are also known to operate there.

'Disestablished'

At least 100 - some reports say 200 - insurgents stormed the small combat outpost in the village of Wanat on the border of Nuristan and Kunar provinces on Sunday.

Some militants briefly broke through defences and into the temporary base.

"We are confirming that we have vacated our combat outpost at Wanat," said Nato spokesman Mark Laity.

The outpost had only been constructed days before it was attacked.

Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) announced the camp had now been "disestablished" but said there would be a "continued presence" in the area - namely patrols and the use of Afghan security forces.

Omar Sami Taza, a spokesman for the governor of Nuristan, said US troops had withdrawn from the area, "leaving the district in the hands of only 20 policemen".

"American troops have taken all heavy weapons out of the district," he told the BBC. "This is why we have lost the district to the Taleban because our police couldn't defend it with one AK-47."

However, the local police chief, Hazarat Ali, told the BBC: "Our police are still in the district, the elders are backing us. We have not lost our district."

The BBC's Alastair Leithead in Kabul says there are many of these small outposts scattered across eastern Afghanistan as part of the US counter-insurgency strategy which is being followed to the letter in this area.

Our correspondent says the idea is to get small groups of international troops and Afghan security forces out on the ground as a permanent presence to instil more confidence in the local people and show they can provide security, rather than just visiting the area on patrol.

The danger for Nato is they risk being outnumbered and attacked, or even overrun, as almost happened in the raid at the weekend.

There had been reports from Afghan local officials of civilian casualties caused by bombing in the aftermath of the attack on the base, but Nato also put out a statement denying this.

They said the only bombs dropped were more than 40km (25 miles) away from the villages named by local officials.

 

[dabong1]

US and Afghan troops have abandoned a remote village in eastern Afghanistan where militants killed nine US soldiers and wounded a dozen more on Sunday.

A statement said the outpost had been temporary and that "regular patrols" in the area would be maintained.

Afghan police are continuing to fight insurgents after the pullout on Tuesday, local officials say.

The attack caused the biggest American loss of life in battle in Afghanistan since operations began in 2001.

Nato says the rebels also suffered heavy casualties.

It did not name the attackers but there has been a sharp increase in Taleban attacks in the country, and in that region in particular, although other rebel groups are also known to operate there.

'Disestablished'

At least 100 - some reports say 200 - insurgents stormed the small combat outpost in the village of Wanat on the border of Nuristan and Kunar provinces on Sunday.



Some militants briefly broke through defences and into the temporary base.

"We are confirming that we have vacated our combat outpost at Wanat," said Nato spokesman Mark Laity.

The outpost had only been constructed days before it was attacked.

Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) announced the camp had now been "disestablished" but said there would be a "continued presence" in the area - namely patrols and the use of Afghan security forces.

Omar Sami Taza, a spokesman for the governor of Nuristan, said US troops had withdrawn from the area, "leaving the district in the hands of only 20 policemen".

"American troops have taken all heavy weapons out of the district," he told the BBC. "This is why we have lost the district to the Taleban because our police couldn't defend it with one AK-47."

However, the local police chief, Hazarat Ali, told the BBC: "Our police are still in the district, the elders are backing us. We have not lost our district."

The BBC's Alastair Leithead in Kabul says there are many of these small outposts scattered across eastern Afghanistan as part of the US counter-insurgency strategy which is being followed to the letter in this area.

Our correspondent says the idea is to get small groups of international troops and Afghan security forces out on the ground as a permanent presence to instil more confidence in the local people and show they can provide security, rather than just visiting the area on patrol.

The danger for Nato is they risk being outnumbered and attacked, or even overrun, as almost happened in the raid at the weekend.

There had been reports from Afghan local officials of civilian casualties caused by bombing in the aftermath of the attack on the base, but Nato also put out a statement denying this.

They said the only bombs dropped were more than 40km (25 miles) away from the villages named by local officials.

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | US troops abandon Afghan outpost

 

[martialLAW]

The typical Yanky Achilles Heel . . . can't fight and can't defend themselves . . . call in the airstrikes that land in the wrong place and alienate a people and culture they thought were not worth educating themselves about.

Arrogant. Imperialist. Hegemonic.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Some observations about the attack, as a comparison with the Sararogh fort that was taken over.

Sararogha had a similar number (45, so slightly less than the NATO 70) of FC troops and the fort was attacked by 200 to 700 militants. Seven killed in the assault and fifteen missing.

The fighting at Sararogha went on for about four hours, about 40 to 50 militants killed.

The key difference IMO:

American ground commanders immediately called in artillery and airstrikes from a B-1 bomber, as well as A-10 and F-15E attack planes. Apache helicopter gunships and a remotely piloted Predator aircraft fired Hellfire missiles at the insurgents, military officials said.

Many of the village houses were damaged in the strikes, but there were no civilian casualties because the villagers had left, Mr. Nuristani said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/world/asia/15afghan.html?pagewanted=2&fta=y

NATO hasn't been shy about using air power, and the rapidity of the response has often ensured casualties are minimized. Nothing I have gathered suggests that air power was dispatched to assist the Srarogha fort.

This is of course at the risk of higher collateral damage - note the last line in the quote above "Many of the village houses were damaged in the strikes, but there were no civilian casualties because the villagers had left, Mr. Nuristani said."

At that point the absence of villagers was not known, yet the strikes were carried out. The safety of the soldiers under siege a larger priority than the locals.

Another interesting subtext to this attack was the civilian casualties inflicted by NATO air strikes subsequent to the base being attacked, and how those casualties perhaps shifted local opinion against NATO, even to the extent of active assistance.

Nuristani officials say that the populace in Weygal has sided with the Taliban since a spate of recent bombing raids killed civilians. On July 4th a bomb attack in the area allegedly killed 17 civilians, including several Afghan medical staff. Two days later another raid hit a party on its way to a wedding in Nangahar province, killing 47 guests including the bride...

...A delegation of 150 tribal elders from the Weygal area camped out in Kabul for several weeks waiting to make a formal protest to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. According to a local member of parliament, they left in disgust when the meeting was repeatedly postponed. The base was attacked two days later.

Afghanistan | Dawn raid | Economist.com