While focus is on Afghan south, U.S. soldiers in north battle on

[unhappycamper]

While focus is on Afghan south, U.S. soldiers in north battle on
Friday, September 24, 2010
By James Foley, Global Post

KUNAR, Afghanistan -- The mountains echo with heavy machine-gun fire and rocket attacks. This small province, in Afghanistan's northeast along the border with Pakistan, is corrugated with valleys so dangerous that U.S. troops can't enter without a full battalion behind them, and a border so porous that it's unclear even to Afghan border patrol where it actually begins and ends.

The U.S. military's focus over the summer and into the fall has been far from this location -- on operations in southern Afghanistan -- and that's been the focus of the American media as well. In Kunar, the steady firefights have been largely forgotten.

I have now been embedded with three different deployments of U.S. troops in Kunar between 2009 and 2010. It was the first place I really felt what it was like to take direct fire.

This company of 101st Airborne Division soldiers out of Combat Outpost Monti has had a very tough fight, even by Kunar's standards. Before this summer, IED and suicide-vest attacks seemed confined to the south. But this company has lost seven soldiers to such attacks. They have also reportedly killed more than 200 Taliban, according to their company commander.

The ambush I recorded on video Aug. 26 was, unfortunately, an all-too-common occurrence for soldiers patrolling here.



unhappycamper comment: ".... is corrugated with valleys so dangerous that U.S. troops can't enter without a full battalion behind them..." The Afghanistan quagmire reminds me of the Vietnam quagmire more and more every day. Khe Sanh and the Iron Triangle immediately come to mind.