Ambush in Afghanistan
This report from Afghanistan caught Abu Muqawama's eye for all the wrong reasons.
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Six U.S. troops and three Afghan soldiers died when insurgents ambushed their foot patrol in eastern Afghanistan, one of the deadliest attacks on American forces this year, officials said Saturday.
The troops were returning from a meeting with village elders Friday afternoon in Nuristan province when militants attacked them with rocket propelled grenades and gunfire, said Lt. Col. David Accetta.
"They were attacked from several enemy positions at the same time," said Accetta, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force and the U.S. military. "It was a complex ambush."
Eight more Americans and 11 Afghans were wounded. The 14 total U.S. casualties was the highest number of wounded and killed from a battle in Afghanistan this year, Accetta said.
Nine killed in an ambush on a light infantry patrol? 19 more wounded? That must have been one hell of an ambush. If Abu Muqawama is a senior commander on the ground in Afghanistan, this casualty report is going to set off all kinds of warning bells in his head. He's going to start with re-evaluating his estimate of the enemy's strength and disposition, that's for sure.How big, Abu Muqawama wants to know, was the U.S./Afghan element in contact? How big was the enemy element? And can Abu Muqawama just point out that it's mid-November? It's freaking cold in eastern Afghanistan at night right now. So either this enemy -- whose numbers are probably not small -- is getting a lot of help from someone in the area who is providing him shelter or he's hard as nails. Probably both, actually.
6 comments:
Interesting - the locals don't seem to be Pathans/Pushtuns:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuristani_people
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/11/ambush-video-sh.html
More on the same. Looks like a setup, and the MO seems to be the same.
We had the same up north, with DostuMs men seeming responsible for killing one Norwegian soldier. Is this the first sign of the war-lords getting restless?
I should mention here that Jeff Kouba over at Peace Like a River recently quoted two sources, one after the other, reading which I couldn't help but make the connection between an incident mentioned by one and an incident mentioned by the other. Which is relevant here because the incident described by the second source is actually the ambush that caught AM's attention here.
So I'll insert the relevant part from the first source (an Asia Times article) here - on the basis of which, if the two incidents are indeed the same, it seems like deception and not necessarily, or not only, an unusually large hostile force element may have played a role in the number of killed and wounded in this particular case (although it's strange then that this doesn't figure in most narratives that appeared in the media about the incident):
(quote - an insurgent says the following)
"The fighters have acquired a lot of confidence due to their successes and now they confidently play tricks. Recently, we used Afghan National Army uniforms and laid siege to American troops in Nooristan and killed and wounded many of them. In return, the Americans threatened to bomb a whole village. That’s why the local people didn’t spy on the Taliban’s positions," Jarrah said.
(end of quote)
Links to add:
http://peacelikeariverblog.com/cgi/wp/?p=65
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IK13Df01.html
Most of the above quote may at first seem like just the usual ranting, but the rest of the Asia Times article might create the impression that some of its details might be taken seriously - though not the bombing threat to the village part which is rather the Taliban's version of an IO I'd believe. Regarding time frame, well, the two incidents could be the same as the last reference in the AT article is to fighting on November 8.
Insurgents disguising themselves - that surely wouldn't be a novelty.
Also, read the rest of the AT article, and one may indeed have questions about potential enemy strength for the next guerrilla season, if not sooner, too.
Just before my last paragraph, read "last reference" as latest reference.
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