9 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Attack in Afghanistan
9 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Attack in Afghanistan
By CARLOTTA GALL
KABUL, Afghanistan, July 13 — Taliban insurgents mounted a large-scale attack on an American forward operating base in eastern Afghanistan in the early hours of Sunday, killing nine American soldiers in fierce fighting that continued through the day.
U.S. Considers Increasing Pace of Iraq Pullout (July 13, 2008) Mark Laity, a spokesman for NATO, confirmed that nine soldiers had been killed and 15 more wounded, but did not give their nationality. Separately, a senior American military official confirmed that the nine soldiers killed were Americans. Four Afghan soldiers also were wounded, Mr. Laity said.
The Taliban assault on the base was the deadliest single attack on the NATO security force in Afghanistan, known as ISAF, in several years.
The American commander of ISAF, Gen. David D. McKiernan, said in an interview on Sunday afternoon that Taliban insurgents had mounted the attack and that fighting was continuing, but he did not give details on casualties.
The attack was the worst of several reported on Sunday in Afghanistan, including a suicide bombing that killed 25 people, 20 of them civilians, in the central part of the country. They add to a asualty count that has already made 2008 the deadliest year in Afghanistan since the United States-led military intervention in 2001. Casualties of American and allied troops for the last two months have been higher than those inflicted in Iraq over the same period. Nearly 700 Afghan civilians were killed in the first five months of the year, a marked increase on previous years, United Nations officials have said.
General McKiernan, who commanded allied land forces during the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and took over command in Afghanistan in June, said that there were several reasons for the increase in violence this summer. He described the spring and summer as the “high season” for fighting.
The violence in 2008 was certainly greater than in the same period in 2007, and 2007 was worse than 2006, he said. NATO officials have said that attacks on its forces have increased by 40 percent from the same period last year.
The general said there were three main reasons: a tactical shift by the insurgents toward smaller attacks on more vulnerable targets, like civilian marketplaces, local government centers and convoys; inroads made by Afghan and NATO forces in regions previously controlled by the Taliban; and the “deteriorating situation with tribal sanctuaries across the border” in Pakistan. Roadside bombs are now causing 80 percent of ISAF casualties, according to one NATO official.
Throughout the interview, General McKiernan repeatedly returned to the issue of the sanctuary that militants enjoy in the tribal areas of Pakistan, as a growing problem that is directly causing instability in Afghanistan.
The forward operating base that came under attack on Sunday is in Kunar province, close to the Afghan-Pakistan border in one of the most inhospitable mountainous regions of the country, where American forces have frequently faced fierce battles with insurgents.
The attackers were repulsed, according to a statement from the NATO press office in Kabul, which said that it was thought that the insurgents had suffered heavy casualties.
The United States coalition also reported a heavy clash between Taliban insurgents and Afghan and American forces patrolling in Helmand province in the south. The report estimated that 40 militants were killed by air strikes as boats and bridges across the Helmand River were destroyed.
A suicide bomber on a motorbike blew himself up in a busy shopping bazaar in the town of Dehrawud in the southern province of Uruzgan, killing the local police chief and four of his men. Twenty civilians, mostly shopkeepers and including some children, were also killed in the attack, and some 30 more were wounded, the provincial police chief, Juma Gul Himat, said by telephone.
General McKiernan said that militant insurgents are firing almost daily across the border from Pakistan at Afghan, American and NATO military border posts. Those attacks are a main factor in the sharp increase in combat violence in Afghanistan in the last few months, he said.
“A cross-border kinetic event — we have probably had at least one almost every day I have been here,” the general, who has been in the post for 40 days, said in an interview at the Kabul headquarters of ISAF, known formally as the International Security Assistance Force.
The interview marked the first time that a senior commander has stated so clearly that militant groups are firing into Afghanistan from positions inside Pakistan, as well as infiltrating across the border.
His comments followed a weeklong visit to the region by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen. Admiral Mullen discussed a wide array of security issues with Pakistan’s leaders on Saturday, and according to an American military official, he spoke of growing concern over the flow of insurgents across the border with Afghanistan.
