Heavy Fighting in Afghanistan

By BJ

The BBC is reporting that at least eight US soldiers have been killed in fighting in the north-east of Afghanistan. The Times Online reports that it was an attempted, (and possibly successful), overrun of a small US outpost.

US troops were killed when Taliban insurgents attempted to overrun an American base as bloody fighting was reported in several parts of Afghanistan today.

Nato reported that the small American Combat Outpost in Dara-I-Pech district of Kunar Province, on the border with Nuristan Province in the east of the country, came under heavy fire at around 4.30am local time. Heavy fighting continued throughout the day with US forces calling in artillery, fast jets and Apache helicopters.

. . .

The fighting is close to where US forces were accused of killing 15 civilians in an airstrike nine days ago. The governor of Nuristan, Doctor Hazrat Hazratin Noor, told The Times: "The Taliban attacked the US base yesterday and the American planes bombed the area. After the attack, the US troops decided to move their base to the district centre of Wanat and they tried to build shelters there in the bazaar overnight. Now the Taliban have attacked again."

I figure the portion I highlighted has some relationship to the attack, as does this recent airstrike. Since the "boots on the ground" presence in Afghanistan has always been on the light side, there has been far greater dependance on air strikes to maintain the coalition's tactical supremacy. Of course, such strikes result in far higher civilian casualties, which enrages the local population, giving the insurgents both the recruits and cover they need to launch attacks like the one above.

And so the cycle continues.