Taliban Breached Base in Clash

[brooklynite]

Source: NY Times

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.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/world/asia/15afghan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

---

Guess we'll have to stay 100 years to clean up this situation...

[YOY]

1. It wasn't the GI JOE/Cobra "Snake Mountain" that Newsweek dreamed up was it?

n/t

[Hydra]

2. 100 years...

Just what Bushco wanted...and by then, there will be plenty of new enemies in the war on freedom.

[superconnected]

3. Heck of a job bush.

[Tempest]

4. Not bad for a group Bush said was eliminated

"And as a result of the United States military, Taliban no longer is in existence.”

[crimsonblue]

5. add this to the 900 person prison break

last month and you've got one helluva good situation going on in Afghanistan. I'm sure glad we wiped them talibanis out in '04. sigh....

[Indenturedebtor]

6. Oh don't worry we'll "Wipe them out" again just before the election n/t

[daleo]

7. Reminiscent of the movie "Platoon"

Well, probably several Viet Nam movies and tv shows featured this plot.

[LynnTheDem]

8. George W. bUsh; "Taliban no longer is in existence."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040927-4.html

"And as a result of the United States military, Taliban no longer is in existence."

Just in case George W. bUsh has "no recall".

[ohio2007]

9. 200 Taliban tried to take out a raised observation post ( ie Deer stand )

200 vs 30.....

Nine US deaths.
Taliban don't have a clue how many 'fighters' they lost. wtf is with that ? What kind of education did they get growing up ?
US forces didn't exactly 'submit' like a blue burqa clad woman to the mighty Mo's awesome powers. Would be interesting to see the individual soldiers pov side of the aftermath landscape.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/14/afghan.violence/index.html?section=cnn_latest#cnnSTCVideo


But, what are the chances the military will allow the soldiers to upload such videos to the internet ?
Yep, a violation of the geneva convention and all but just maybe, something could get leaked. Much like that straits of Hormuz video

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/14/afghan.violence/index.html?section=cnn_latest#cnnSTCVideo
The more this story trickles out, the more inept the Taliban appear with sending their boys out to 'the happy hunting grounds'
What will they tell the boys parents when they find out they were removed from school in Pakistan and sent off to summer camp without consent.
.lol
Like they care about body counts. This failed attack on a watchtower proves. Only thing left to do is show the faces of the fallen to get a better assessment as to reasons behind why 200 couldn't defeat a tree stand watchtower manned by 30


Unless.....
they had bad Intel and thought the watchtower was manned by only 10 ?

The Taliban should hold a press conference so reporters can get such details on the defeat er, victory

oh wait....


:sarcasm:

they were hoping to grab a POW or two imo
Then

they would want to put together a few videos with the captured soldiers "speaking their minds" ;)

uh huh
yeah

[daleo]

13. Basing strategy on kill ratios didn't work in Viet Nam

I have my doubts about it working in Afghanistan.

[ohio2007]

19. What did bring the north to Paris wasn't a body count but a big stick they couldn't counter

it raised alarms in Hanoi and that brought them to a the Paris peace table when the guns were ordered silent





Body counts didn't work for Saddam against Iran's "human wave" attacks either but will the US be ready to deal with the same radical "Tet offensive" brewing over the border?
Theres plenty more cannon fodder over the border and it isn't all Pakistan volunteers either

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=16112



follow the Ho Chi Minh trail
but do not cross as it would be against the rules
http://www.dawn.com/2008/07/20/top6.htm


We can only wait and hope drones, operating on a more surgical scale, have the same impact in the Himalayas as 2,300 lb shells lobbed into dowtown Hanoi did.

[paparush]

10. You KNOW what's going to happen..the Russians are going to arm the Taliban against US

What comes around baby!

This is the group that fought off the fucking RUSSIANS! Napolean could not defeat the Russians. Hitler could not defeat the Russians.

Get us the hell out of there.

Fuck the pipeline.

[ohio2007]

12. AK 47's are a Russian invention . Safe to say they already are the arms dealer to the world

if that isn't "branding" I don't know what is

[YOY]

14. And he's still alive and kicking with no regrets.

Kalashnikov that is.

[EFerrari]

16. Pakistan. Karzai is blaming the ISI and the military. n/t

[ohio2007]

11. Obama aims to send 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan

Barack Obama today pledged to increase US troops in Afghanistan by a third if he becomes president, sending 10,000 more to reinforce the 33,000 already there.

He was speaking after the US lost nine soldiers at the weekend in the deadliest attack on its forces in the country since 2005.

Obama has promised, soon after becoming president in January, to begin scaling back the 156,000 US troops in Iraq and Kuwait, and shift the focus to Afghanistan.

He is to fill out his plans in a major foreign policy speech in Washington tomorrow ahead of his first visit to Iraq and Afghanistan since he launched his presidential bid early last year


snip
"I continue to believe that we're under-resourced in Afghanistan," he said. "That is the real centre for terrorist activity that we have to deal with and deal with aggressively."

As well as visiting Iraq and Afghanistan, he is to go to Germany, France and Britain and call on Germany and France, in particular, to increase their involvement in Afghanistan.

snip
Obama, in the New York Times article, reiterated his promise to have all US combat troops out by the summer of 2010, with a "residual" force left in place to fight al-Qaida and training Iraqi forces.

He did not specify how big the residual force would be - one of his advisers has speculated it could be as big as 60,000-80,000 troops _ but Obama said "we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea".

Obama argues that withdrawal will help the US save on the $10bn (£5bn) to $12bn it spends on Iraq each month and that money can be used elsewhere.

As well as troop increases in Afghanistan, Obama said he would use the freed resources to increase the US army overall by 65,000 and the marines by 27,000

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/14/barackobama.uselections20082

WOnder how that major foriegn policy speech is comming along. The current events probably have the writer burning the midnight oil.
Should lead to firworks getting posted at that time

[semillama]

15. But did they rock the casbah? n/t

[paparush]

17. This is really the last, Last, LAST throes of the Taliban.

[ohio2007]

18. ..." Two hours after the first shots were fired, Stafford made his way — with help — to the medevac"

Soldiers Recount Deadly Attack On Afghanistan Outpost Of A Week Ago



Everything was on fire. The trucks. The bazaar. The grass.

It looked surreal. It looked like a movie.

That was what Spc. Tyler Stafford remembered thinking as he stepped onto the medical evacuation helicopter. The 23-year-old soldier would have been loaded onto the bird, but the poncho that was hastily employed as his stretcher broke. His body speckled with grenade and RPG shrapnel, the Vicenza, Italy, infantryman walked the last few feet to the waiting Black Hawk.That was Sunday morning in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar province. At a forward operating base — maybe as big as a football field — established just a few days prior.


snip
The first RPG and machine gun fire came at dawn, strategically striking the forward operating base’s mortar pit. The insurgents next sighted their RPGs on the tow truck inside the combat outpost, taking it out. That was around 4:30 a.m. This was not a haphazard attack. The reportedly 200 insurgents fought from several positions. They aimed to overrun the new base. The U.S. soldiers knew it and fought like hell. They knew their lives were on the line.

snip
Platoon leader 1st Lt. Jonathan Brostrom and Cpl. Jason Hovater arrived at the observation post to reinforce the soldiers. By that time, the insurgents had breached the perimeter of the observation post. Gunfire rang out, and Rainey shouted, “He’s right behind the sandbag.”

Brostrom could be heard shouting about the insurgent as well.

snip

The insurgents then started chucking rocks at Gobble and Stafford’s fighting position, hoping that the soldiers might think the rocks were grenades, causing them to jump from the safety of their fighting hole. One rock hit a tree behind Stafford and landed directly between his legs. He braced himself for an explosion. He then realized it was a rock.



snip

“It was some of the bravest stuff I’ve ever seen in my life, and I will never see it again because those guys,” Stafford said, then paused. “Normal humans wouldn’t do that. You’re not supposed to do that — getting up and firing back when everything around you is popping and whizzing and trees, branches coming down and sandbags exploding and RPGs coming in over your head …

It was a fistfight then, and those guys held ’ em off.”






Stafford offered a guess as to why his fellow soldiers fought so hard.

“Just hardcoreness I guess,” he said. “Just guys kicking ass, basically. Just making sure that we look scary enough that you don’t want to come in and try to get us.”

http://patdollard.com/2008/07/soldiers-recount-deadly-attack-on-afghanistan-outpost-of-a-week-ago/

Those FOB guys know;
being taken prisoner is not an opton. Its a fate worse then death. Imagine the videos that would have made their way to al Jazeera stringers.

imo, It would be nice if Barak could slip away from the MSM and look in on these FOB guys from Vicenza, Italy, and listen to what the grunts have to say about future directions the Afghan expedition should take.