World | Afghanistan
US troops beaten back
Insurgents stormed remote Afghan outposts near the Pakistani border, killing eight US troops and cutting off scores of Afghan police in the deadliest battle in more than a year, officials said yesterday.
- Reuters
- Published: 23:38 October 4, 2009
- Image Credit: AP
- US Marines regroup to take up new positions during a battle with the Taliban in Nawa district, Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, on Sunday.
Asadabad, Afghanistan: Insurgents stormed remote Afghan outposts near the Pakistani border, killing eight US troops and cutting off scores of Afghan police in the deadliest battle in more than a year, officials said yesterday.
Nato said at least two Afghan soldiers died along with the eight Americans. Afghan provincial authorities said they had lost contact with scores of Afghan policemen after the day-long attack and did not know their fate.
The fighting took place in Nuristan province's Kamdesh district in high mountains along the eastern border with Pakistan on Saturday but was not reported until yesterday.
The battle showed the ferocity of the insurgency in a part of the country that US forces have decided to abandon after years of heavy fighting. The troops had already announced plans to withdraw from the area as part of commander General Stanley McChrystal's strategy to focus his forces on population centres.
Militia from a local mosque and a nearby village launched the attacks on two joint Nato and Afghan outposts, the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force said. The Nato troops in the area are American.
"My heart goes out to the families of those we have lost and to their fellow soldiers who remained to finish the fight," Colonel Randy George, commander of the US force in the eastern mountain area bordering Pakistan, said in the statement. "This was a complex attack in a difficult area. Both the US and Afghan soldiers fought bravely together. I am extremely proud of their professionalism and bravery."
As the battle raged, foreign troops sent in F-16 jet fighters and Apache helicopter gunships to help the forces caught in the battle, a spokeswoman for the US military said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The group's spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said dozens of Afghan soldiers and police had been killed along with Western troops.
Fighters captured 35 police during the battle and their fate would be decided by the movement's provincial council, he added.
Because of the loss of contact, Afghan authorities could give no firm figures for the number of their fighters who were killed.
The province's deputy police chief Mohammad Farooq said the fate of an entire 90-strong police force in the Kamdesh district was unknown.
Under McChrystal's new counter-insurgency strategy, Nato troops are supposed to move into more heavily populated areas to protect the population and reduce the influence of insurgents, while abandoning efforts to defend remote locations.
Saturday's attack would not alter Nato plans to leave the area, the alliance said.
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