The idea behind these bases is twofold: to try to control and stop Taliban militants from crossing into Afghanistan, and to instill confidence in the local people by showing that international forces are there to stay to provide permanent security. The danger for US-NATO troops at these bases is that they risk being outnumbered and attacked or even overrun by the Taliban, as almost happened in the raid exactly a week ago today.
According to various reports, last Sunday at 4:30 a.m. about 200 Taliban militants began attacking a small base near the village of Wanat on the border of Nuristan and Kunar provinces. The base was a new base and had only been partially constructed, with only 45 US and 25 Afghan soldiers deployed there. The observation post near the base was incomplete and at the time of attack was being watched by US and Afghan troops.
Before the attack Taliban militants had infiltrated overnight and ordered villagers to leave before they began opening fire on the base from the west and southwest. At roughly the same time, US officials said, another group of militants began the second prong of the attack, firing on the observation post from the east. Some breached the perimeter wall and entered the main compound of the base and advanced a few hundred yards.
US ground commanders immediately called in artillery and air strikes from a B-1 bomber, as well as A-10 tankbuster and F-15E attack aircraft. Apache helicopter gunships and a remotely piloted, armed Predator drone fired Hellfire missiles at the Taliban groups. Faced with this massive fire from the air as well with the resolute resistance of the US and Afghan troops on the base, the Taliban militants could not continue their assault and in the end had to withdraw, leaving behind some of their dead at the base.
The attack, which nearly ended with the base being overrun, left nine US soldiers dead with 15 wounded. It was the biggest single loss of life for US forces in Afghanistan since 2005, when 16 Navy Seals were killed when their Chinook helicopter was downed by a Taliban rocket attack. The dead and the wounded are from the 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Vicenza, Italy. Incidentally, this was the brigade that first landed in northern Iraq at the beginning of the Iraq war, and it did not suffer any casualties then.
The surprise, deadly and well-planned attack highlighted several important issues with regard to war in Afghanistan: first, the vulnerability of US forces in Afghanistan, which are being stretched increasingly thin; second, a change in tactics by Taliban; and third, the wrong military analysis, which for some time suggested that the Taliban had abandoned frontal assaults on US-NATO forces and bases for suicide bombings and IEDs.
Well, the last point was proven wrong with the almost successful attack in Wanat and further, it not only brought the war in Afghanistan to the forefront of presidential campaign politics, as both Barack Obama and John McCain wowed more troops for Afghanistan, but also sent a very strong message to the Pentagon and the US top brass that Afghanistan urgently needs more attention and more resources than before, a fact admitted recently by both Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, who said after the abovementioned attack that the enemy in Afghanistan had grown bolder, more sophisticated and more diverse.
Indeed, the Taliban is more sophisticated and bolder now, as shown by the daring attack, and it needs more attention and resources with which to tackle it.
