Taliban Fighters Hid in Sewage Tanker, Used Ladders to Breach Major Helmand Base Housing Marines and Afghan Forces by Shawn Snow – Marine Corps Times
The March 1 assault by Taliban fighters against the generally perceived secured major military base in Helmand, Afghanistan, will result in some of the first combat action ribbons for a small group of Marines, whose primary task is advising Afghan forces.
Some of the Marines assigned to the small adviser group, known as Task Force Southwest, aided Afghan forces in repelling the attack on the vitally important Camp Bastion base, which according to the New York Times was stormed by Taliban fighters hiding in sewage tankers and by some militants who used ladders to scale walls and cross turf guarded by dozy patrollers.
The New York Times also reported that Taliban fighters had spies on the base, an Afghan lieutenant colonel and a sergeant major, who helped the militants hide.
The brazen assault by the outnumbered Taliban fighters calls into question the state of disrepair and security of the one of the most important Afghan military bases, which at the height of the war housed thousands of Marines and British troops and served as a focal point for America’s strategy to secure the volatile Helmand province…