KABUL: Hundreds of insurgents armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades stormed a pair of remote outposts near the Pakistan border, killing eight US soldiers and capturing more than 20 Afghan security soldiers in the deadliest assault against US forces in more than a year, military officials said Sunday.
The fierce gunbattle, which erupted at dawn Saturday in the Kamdesh district of mountainous Nuristan province and raged throughout the day, is likely to fuel the debate in Washington over the direction of the troubled eight-year war.
It was the heaviest US loss of life in a single battle since July 2008, when nine American soldiers were killed in a raid on an outpost in Wanat in the same province.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, plans to shift US troops away from remote outposts that are difficult to defend and move them into more heavily populated areas as part of his new strategy to focus on protecting Afghan civilians.
US troops used artillery, helicopter gunships and airstrikes Saturday to repel the attackers, inflicting “heavy enemy casualties,” according to a NATO statement. Fighting persisted in the area on Sunday, US and Afghan officials said.
The Taleban claimed responsibility for the attack. NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay said the assailants included a mix of “tribal militias,” Taleban and fighters loyal to Sirajudin Haqqani, an Al-Qaeda-linked militant based in sanctuaries in the tribal areas of Pakistan near the Afghan border.
Afghan authorities said the hostile force included fighters who had been driven out of the Swat Valley of neighboring Pakistan after a Pakistani military offensive there last spring.
“This was a complex attack in a difficult area,” US Col. Randy George, the area commander, said in a statement. “Both the US and Afghan soldiers fought bravely together.”
Details of the attack remained unclear Sunday and there were conflicting reports of Afghan losses due to poor communications in the area, located just 30 km from the Pakistani border and about 230 km from Kabul.
A NATO statement said the attacks were launched from a mosque and a nearby village on opposite sides of a hill, which included the two outposts — one mostly American position on the summit and another mostly Afghan police garrison on a lower slope.
NATO said eight Americans and two Afghan security troopers were killed.
An Afghan military official said three Afghan soldiers and one policeman had been killed in two days of fighting. He also said at least seven Afghan Army soldiers were missing and feared captured.
In addition, provincial police chief Mohammad Qasim Jangulbagh said 15 Afghan policemen had been captured, including the local police chief and his deputy. Jangulbagh estimated that about 300 militants took part in the attack.
Jangulbagh said that after Pakistani forces drove militants from most of the Swat Valley five months ago, militants “received orders to come to Nuristan and destabilize the situation.” Taleban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said militants overran both outposts, but US spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said US troops were holding the outposts Sunday.
US President Barack Obama’s national security adviser said Sunday Afghanistan is not in imminent danger of falling to the Taleban, as he downplayed worries that the insurgency could set up a renewed sanctuary for Al-Qaeda.
Retired Gen. James Jones also emphasized Pakistan’s campaign against insurgents in safe havens along the border, suggesting that those efforts could provide a key shift in the war.
