Nuristan, Afghanistan
Deadly Attack By Taliban Tests New Strategy – Joshua Partlow and Greg Jaffe, Washington Post. US commanders had been planning since late last year to abandon the small combat outpost in mountainous eastern Afghanistan where eight US soldiers died Saturday in a fierce insurgent assault. The pullout, part of a strategy of withdrawing from sparsely populated areas where the United States lacks the troops to expel Taliban forces and to support the local Afghan government, has been repeatedly delayed by a shortage of cargo helicopters, Afghan politics and military bureaucracy, US military officials said. The attack began in the early morning hours. Taliban-linked militiamen struck from the high ground using rifles, grenades and rockets against the outpost, a cluster of stone buildings set in a small Hindu Kush valley that has been manned by 140 US and Afghan forces. By the end of a day-long siege, eight Americans and two Afghan security officers were dead, marking the highest toll for US forces in over a year. The deaths brought into stark relief the dilemma the Obama administration faces in Afghanistan. Without more soldiers and supplies, the Taliban and allied insurgents are gaining ground, but committing more forces could sink the country deeper into an increasingly deadly and unpopular war.
Attacks on Remote Posts Highlight Afghan Risks – Sabrina Tavernese and Sangar Rahimi, New York Times. Insurgents attacked a pair of remote American military bases in Afghanistan over the weekend in a deadly battle that underscored the vulnerability of the kind of isolated bases that the top American commander there wants to scale back. The commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, is pressing for a change in strategy that would shift troops to heavily populated centers to protect civilians and focus less on battling the insurgents in the hinterlands. As though to reinforce his point, insurgents carried out a bold daylight strike on two bases on the Pakistani border, killing eight Americans and four Afghan security officers in the deadliest attack for American soldiers in more than a year, Afghan and American officials said Sunday. The assault occurred less than 20 miles from the site of a similar attack that killed nine Americans last year, which had already become a cautionary tale at the Pentagon for how not to win the war in Afghanistan.
Worst Losses for a Year as Taleban Storm NATO Outpost – Martin Fletcher, The Times. It began before dawn – a devastating, well-planned attack. About 300 insurgents swarmed out of a village and mosque and attacked a pair of isolated American outposts in a remote mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan with machineguns, rockets and grenades. They first stormed the Afghan police post at the foot of the hill in the province of Nuristan, a Taleban and al-Qaeda stronghold on the lawless Pakistan border. They then swept up to the NATO post. The battle lasted all day. American and Afghan soldiers finally repelled them, with the help of US helicopters and warplanes – but at heavy cost. Eight American soldiers and two Afghan policemen were killed, with many injured. It was the worst attack on NATO forces in 14 months, and one of the deadliest battles of the eight-year war. The insurgents seized at least 20 Afghan policemen whose fate last night remained unclear. The attack came at a crucial juncture in the war, with President Obama soon to decide whether to accept a request by General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the 100,000-strong US and NATO force in Afghanistan, for 40,000 extra troops, or to reduce the counter-insurgency operation against the Taleban and focus on al-Qaeda.
Afghanistan Assault Points Out US Vulnerabilities – Laura King, Los Angeles Times. In one of the most lethal battles for American troops in the Afghanistan war, a wave of insurgents attacked a pair of relatively lightly manned bases near the Pakistani border over the weekend, triggering a daylong clash that left eight Americans and as many as half a dozen Afghan troops dead. It was precisely the kind of attack the top US commander in Afghanistan is hoping to stave off by recently ordering troops to withdraw from such small outposts, concentrating instead on defending population centers. The outposts attacked Saturday had already been slated to be abandoned soon, the military said. The toll was the highest in a single incident for American forces in Afghanistan since nine US soldiers died in a strikingly similar insurgent assault 15 months ago on an outpost in the same northeastern province, Nuristan. Military officials describe the attack on the jointly run US-Afghan outposts in the Kamdesh district as a tightly coordinated onslaught by hundreds of insurgents.
McChrystal Planned to Move Soldiers Killed in Afghan Siege – Mark Sappenfield, Christian Science Monitor. One fundamental tenet of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s controversial Afghanistan strategy aims at avoiding precisely the kinds of attacks that killed eight American soldiers Sunday. In what is being described as one of the boldest attacks of the Afghan insurgency, an estimated 300 militants sustained a day-long siege against a coalition outpost in Nuristan Province – a place where the rule of law is so tenuous and the terrain so forbidding that it is seen as one of the likeliest hiding places for Osama bin Laden. It is also has fewer people than Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Beyond the request for more resources that has engrossed America, McChrystal’s battlefield assessment proposes deploying American troops in a profoundly different way. Rather than sending them to the farthest-flung corners of a far-flung nation to hunt down scores of militants hiding in remote mountain caves, it intends to protect the Afghan population first, giving the most Afghans the greatest opportunity of establishing something approaching a safe and normal life. Fourth of McChrystal’s “four fundamental pillars” for a new strategy is: “prioritize available resources to those critical areas where the population is most threatened.” In fact, the very troops in Nuristan forced to fight off unseen attackers firing down from ridge lines cloaked in inclement weather Sunday are poised to be redeployed under McChrystal’s new leadership, according to the Washington Post.
American Strategy of Winning Trust of Afghan People is High Risk – Tom Coghlan, The Times news analysis. Attacks such as that which killed eight Americans in Nuristan are a risk inherent in a US strategy that prioritises putting soldiers inside Afghan village communities. The American system, developed over the past three years, aims to separate the population from the insurgents and ultimately to win their trust. That means being among the people, rather than remote from them, and giving up the safety of large bases for small combat outposts of a few dozen troops alongside local security forces. These small outposts are built as satellites to larger forward operating bases which provide artillery support. It was a combat outpost and an Afghan police base close by that were attacked in Nuristan. The outposts are vulnerable if the insurgents can attack with surprise and in large numbers. In the mountains of eastern Afghanistan many of the advantages the Nato forces have in equipment are offset by the local conditions. Nuristan is at high altitude and air cover can be affected at this time of year by the onset of winter. The first snows usually fall at the end of October. The insurgents in the region tend to include highly competent foreign elements with al-Qaeda links as well as Pakistani militants, operating from groups originally trained by the Pakistani Army to fight India in Kashmir, such as Lashkar-e-Toiba. The insurgents operate from safe havens just across the border in Pakistan and enjoy short resupply lines. The steep, wooded valleys mean that they can often get close to US bases without detection, and can routinely overlook American positions from surrounding mountains.
