The war was at a stalemate. Multiple operations in 2007 had failed to defeat the Taliban and remaining al Qaeda, or weaken their ability to conduct major operations from bases in eastern and southern Afghanistan and sanctuaries in Pakistan. Increasing operations by HIG, the Haqqani Network Pakistan Islamist groups LeT and TNSM, and other heavily armed groups often linked to drug networks, along with corrupt Afghan officials, undermined the security situation.
There were still two distinct commands in Afghanistan: the NATO-led ISAF, which focused on stabilization, and the US Operation Enduring Freedom, which was combat-oriented. US Army General Dan K. McNeill assumed command of ISAF in February 2007 and had seen it through the year’s hard fighting. Because of the command structure in place, General McNeill did not have control over US forces in RC-East. He also had to work within varying national rules of engagement.
Several NATO nations imposed restrictions (“national caveats”), which prevented their forces from conducting combat operations or permitting their forces from being transferred to different areas in Afghanistan to help balance force levels.1 The five regional commands were each controlled by a different nation, without a unified plan for stabilization, reconstruction, or counter-narcotics operations.2
The lack of consistency in combat operations carried over to the PRTs. US PRTs moved throughout their territories with the focus on engaging local populations and government to bring about tangible results. They also had the ability to respond to attacks against them. ISAF PRTs consisting of coalition personnel had the same resources, but were hesitant to engage the local population in combat operations.
Instead of set-piece fights against US, ISAF, and coalition forces, the insurgents increasing relied on suicide bombers and IEDs to inflict casualties. The first Taliban attack of the year occurred at 6:30pm on January 14, 2008, when four men wearing police uniforms over suicide vests attacked the heavily guarded Kabul Serena Hotel. After a car bomb was detonated outside, a guard shot and killed one attacker at the gate to the hotel’s parking lot, which triggered the attacker’s suicide vest. A second attacker blew himself up near the entrance to the hotel’s lobby, and the third attacker made it inside the hotel, shooting his way through the lobby and toward the gym, killing a number of guests before blowing himself up. The fourth didn’t trigger his vest, but rather changed clothes in an attempt to escape. Security forces searched the premises and found him on the roof. The attack killed six and wounded six others. It was the deadliest attack on a Kabul hotel since 2001.3
Just over a month later, a suicide bomber detonated himself among a densely packed crowd in southern Afghanistan during a dog-fighting match, killing at least 55 people and injuring 80 others. Abdul Hakim Jan, an anti-Taliban militia leader and leader of the auxiliary police force, who was in attendance at the event, was believed to be the intended target. The Taliban denied responsibility, and intelligence indicated it may have been HIG who set up the attack, the worst such attack in Afghan history.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for another incident the next day, February 18, when a car bomb exploded near a Canadian forces convoy in a busy market area in Spin Boldak, about 75km south of Kandahar city. The blast killed 38 Afghans, wounded dozens more, and four Canadian soldiers received minor wounds.
Commando Wrath, the first major operation of the year, launched on April 6. The mission targeted the HIG terrorist group meeting in a village located in the Shok Valley, Nuristan province, just north of the Khyber Pass. The provincial governor had been tipped off that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the founder of HIG, would be there. The village was accessible only by foot or pack mule. In April, a fast-moving river, fed by melting snow, ran down the middle of the ravine with cliffs rising to 160ft on either side. The intelligence estimate said there were about 70 combatants in the village.
US Army 3rd Special Forces Group Captain Kyle M. Walton commanded the assault force, which consisted of three 12-man ODA teams and the ANA 201st Commando Kandak.
Walton led ODA 3336 and its part of the Afghan commandos against the village while the other two ODAs secured secondary objectives scattered more than a mile up and down the valley.
Each ODA had its own Air Force JTAC qualified to direct supporting air strikes. Senior Airman Zachary J. Rhyner, 21st Special Tactics Squadron, was embedded with ODA 3336. Staff Sergeant Robert Gutierrez Jr. was JTAC for ODA 3312, assigned to an objective farther down the valley. The third combat controller with the force was Senior Airman Cory Madonna, attached to an ODA that would attack an insurgent position a kilometer to the north of the main assault. Specialist Michael Carter (55th Signal Company Combat Camera) was also assigned to ODA 3336.
Six CH-47 Chinook helicopters inserted ODA 3336 and the Wolves in the objective area in the morning. Captain Kyle M. Walton said that many of the men were carrying 60lb packs and that “they jumped off [the helicopter] into jagged rocks, running water, and 40-degree temperatures at approximately 10,000ft elevation.”
The noise of the approaching helicopters ruled out any possibility of surprise, but Walton and his troops hoped they could catch the insurgents before they were fully prepared. As the Chinooks descended toward the landing zone at the bottom of the cliffs, insurgents scurried for firing positions in stone houses and holes dug into the canyon walls. Apache attack helicopters, A-10 Warthogs, and two F-15E fighters from the 335th Tactical Fighter Squadron circled overhead.
Walton took advantage of the view provided by the F-15E’s targeting pod. “They asked me to get them the best route of ingress from the riverbed to the village itself,” said Captain Prichard Keeley, weapons system officer (WSO) on one of the F-15s. “I chose the terrain that was least exposed to enemy gunfire and the easiest point of ingress, while avoiding the most mountain climbing.”
The team separated into three groups, six Afghan commandos and an interpreter with each element. The plan was to get to the village up the mountain, enter the village by surprise, take on any insurgents in the village, and then fight their way downhill to the extraction point. Walton said: “We didn’t want to fight uphill.”
Since they were at the base of the valley, their plan was to get to a village perched strategically above the valley on top of the mountain, so right away they had to climb. Rhyner described the climb up: “Initial infiltration began … with snow on the ground, jagged rocks, a fast-moving river, and a cliff. There was a 5ft wall you had to pull yourself up. The ridgeline trail was out of control.” As they climbed up about 1,000ft, they could see enemy scurrying about to get into position. Master Sergeant Scott Ford said the time from when they were inserted until the first shots were fired spanned about 30 minutes.
“The buildings in the village are built one on top of the other, on top of a slope thousands of feet in the air,” said Walton. “So we started the climb. The insurgents waited until the lead element was within a couple hundred meters of the compound before they initiated contact. As soon as the shooting started, we realized that they had their defensive positions dug in, and they were occupying buildings 360 degrees all around us.” Staff Sergeant Rob Gutierrez said: “We were caught off guard as 200 enemy fighters approached. Within 10 minutes, we were ambushed with heavy fire from 50m. The teams were split by a river 100–200m apart, north to south.”
The first burst of fire killed the interpreter, 23-year-old “CK,” standing beside Walton. CK, an orphan, had hoped to one day come and live in America. “He has six years of combat experience. He’s been with six SF teams and been in hundreds of firefights – but he doesn’t get the six-month break,” said Staff Sergeant Luis Morales.
Moments later, Staff Sergeant Dillon Behr was shot in the leg. Behr, a communications sergeant, stayed in the fight and sustained another wound before he became unable to continue the fight.
The only protection was a shallow wadi in the rock. “When the enemy opened fire, I was on a narrow terrace, about 60ft up from the bottom of the valley and 6ft wide, with little to no cover,” said Rhyner. He was shot in the leg. “The rounds hit my left thigh and went through my leg and hit another guy in the foot,” he said. Walton treated Rhyner’s injury as Rhyner called in air strikes. The Apaches and the F-15s swept down with rockets and strafing runs to hold the insurgents back.
Walton said Sanders was the first person he thought of who might be able to identify where the insurgents were. “I was standing next to the combat controller, and when we got to a place where we could talk, he called in close air support, and two F-15s from the 335th Fighter Squadron rolled in immediately. I knew my guys were up there, and I know that when you call in danger-close air, you are probably going to get injured or killed. I called back to Sanders and asked if he was too close. He said, ‘Bring it anyway.’ Bombs started exploding everywhere. When I called to see if he was still alive, all I could hear him saying was, ‘Hit them again.’” Walton said that it is rare to call in danger-close air even once during a firefight. Throughout the afternoon, the team called it in 70 times.
Captain Prichard Keely, USAF, was a weapons system officer (WSO – “Whiz-oh”) aboard one of the Eagles, responsible for firing the weapons. He was the lead WSO, and was responsible for finding and verifying targets and determining which weapons were needed for each situation. Keely’s later comment was: “It was a great feeling. Those guys were in the heat of it. It was the least we could do.”
“We did take some casualties from the danger-close air,” said Staff Sergeant Seth Howard. “A lot of the commandos got injured from falling debris. The bombs were throwing full trees and boulders at them – they were flying hundreds of meters.”
At one point in the battle, when it looked as if the C2 element would be overrun, Sanders called for the bombing to come closer. “They dropped a 2,000lb bomb right on top of our position,” said Walton. “Because of the elevation, the bomb blew upward rather than down. It just didn’t seem like we had much of a decision. Our guys were wounded, and we couldn’t go back the way we came.” Sanders commented: “We knew we might get hurt, but we really didn’t think about it.”
Walton knew that time was running out. Reports from the air said more insurgents were moving in their direction. Everyone on the team had sustained some sort of injury, four of them critical, and the commandos had their share of injuries, as well. “Everyone kept fighting, but there was a window closing on us,” said Walton. “We knew we had to get out.”
With their backs literally against a wall, and recognizing that they couldn’t go down the same way they came up – the switchbacks they had climbed up were the primary focus of the insurgent fire – they began assessing another route for exfil. “We knew we couldn’t go back the way we came, so our only option was going down the cliff,” said Walton. “We were completely pinned down. There was intense fire all around us. We couldn’t leave the casualties. We were prepared to sit there and die with them, but we decided we were going to get them out of there.”
Sanders made the first climb down the mountain by himself. When he climbed back up the sheer face of the cliff, Walton had one question: “Do you think we can make it down?”
Sanders’ reply put the climb in perspective, “Does it matter if they have broken necks or backs?”
“My question was: will they live?” said Walton. With Sanders’ assurance that they would live, the team began the treacherous climb.
Master Sergeant Scott Ford, the team sergeant, set up the MEDEVAC and organized the less seriously wounded to carry the more critically injured down. While organizing the commandos, Ford was shot in his chest armor plate by sniper fire. He immediately got to his feet and continued to lay down suppressive fire. One of the insurgent snipers had Ford in his sights, and shot him in the upper left arm, nearly severing it. With a tourniquet around his arm, Ford climbed down the mountain and continued to organize the MEDEVAC.
Morales said that the team made its way down the cliff hanging onto branches and rocks. Near the bottom of the cliff, most made a 20ft drop. He remembered seeing John (Walding) carrying his leg down. (Walding’s leg had been almost amputated by sniper fire.)
As the wounded made their way down the cliff, Howard, Walton, and Specialist Michael Carter, a combat cameraman assigned to the unit, remained behind to lay down suppressive fire and retrieve equipment. “There were a lot of guns around where everybody had been shot,” said Howard. “It kind of became an issue that there were too many guns up there, and we didn’t want to leave them in enemy hands.”
Carter ran through a hail of fire to retrieve the guns and other equipment. His own cameras had been shot up during the initial hours of the battle. He gathered equipment and began throwing it off the cliff, while Howard continued to pick off enemy combatants.
“The stars really aligned,” said Walton. “Bullets were coming down from the side and behind us, and we could hear guys yelling above us. An element that came to reinforce the team that was on the ground stepped out into the open and started firing, which gave us the chance to get out. Seth was crazy enough to stay up there and cover us while we made the climb down.”
Alone, with less than a magazine of ammunition left, Howard covered his team as they made their way down, and only after they were safe did he leave the mountain.4
In the six-and-a half-hour-firefight more than 150 insurgents were killed. There were two ANA casualties.5 The mission failed to capture Gulbuddin Hekmatyar or impact HIG operations in the region.
Operation Mouje Sealam on April 21–24, conducted by the ANA’s 207th Commando Kandak along with their US SOF trainers, captured one insurgent, killed another who tried to mount an attack against them, and recovered weapons, IED material, and rockets.
US and Afghan forces conducted a search of several compounds in the Tag Ab Valley on April 26 in an effort to locate a Taliban leader suspected of facilitating a number of deadly attacks against security forces. The raid also aimed to disrupt local insurgent roadside-bomb cells. A suicide bomb vest was discovered during the search and removed from the area. Shortly after searching the compounds, gunmen ambushed the patrol from neighboring buildings, sparking a massive gun battle that lasted until coalition forces unleashed a hail of artillery fire and called in CAS. Several gunmen were killed in the bombardment and a number of civilians were wounded. The suspected Taliban mastermind is believed to have been killed during the battle.
Despite efforts to thwart it, the Mujahdeen victory parade attack came off on April 27 when six snipers opened fire on hundreds of journalists, dignitaries, and government officials gathered to observe the national holiday. Four people, including a member of parliament from Paktia province and a ten-year-old boy, were killed in the attack. Three of the attackers were shot dead by police and the remaining three were arrested. The attack was believed to have been carried out by the Haqqani Network in conjunction with HIG. The attack was a major propaganda coup for the Taliban, who previously claimed they could launch an attack anywhere in Afghanistan at a time of their choosing. There was little that ISAF, US, and Afghan security forces could do to stop them.6
The Marines got back into the fight in RC-South on April 28 when 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, 24th MEU started an attack on the Taliban stronghold town of Garmsir in Helmand province.
The British-led forces in the area were outnumbered by the larger Taliban presence, which was held in check by aircraft and heavy artillery. Territorial gains were measured in yards. When US Marines arrived in Kandahar, General Dan K. McNeill, ISAF commander, was adamant that the Marines were not “the cavalry” coming to the rescue of British, Dutch, Canadian, and other allied forces in southern Afghanistan. However, it was the Marines who took the initiative to shift the balance of power in the region.
Operation Azada Wosa (“Be Free” or “Live Free” in the Pashtu language) was to last ten days, with the objective of enhancing security for the Afghan citizens of a district in Helmand province, and engage leaders to determine what would be required to bring stability to their district.
The key was control of the Helmand River, which runs north to south through the center of the province and provided easy access for the insurgents’ logistics. “Fighters and weapons funneled through there, it was a stop along the way to other locations in and out of Afghanistan,” said Major Carl McCleod, intelligence officer, 24th MEU.
According to Major Tom Clinton, “The Marines are entering an area lush with opium poppies. The Marines don’t want to antagonize the local population by joining US-backed efforts to destroy the crop. We’re not coming to eradicate poppy. We’re coming to clear the Taliban.”
The plan was for Charlie Company to create a diversion in the north and Alpha and Bravo companies to insert into their objectives to the south. The plan was that insurgents could not react to a three-pronged attack, and that they would certainly not be ready for the Marines when they woke up in the morning, explained Major Mark D. McCarroll, battery commander, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 24th MEU, ISAF.
“They had no idea we were going to land that far south. They weren’t prepared for us. We literally dropped in behind them,” said McCleod. “It took them a few days to realize we were there in that size of force behind them.”
In less than 12 hours the Marines penetrated into the enemy-held territory of the Snake’s Head and seized key crossing points and terrain. For the next 35 days, the Marines and insurgents engaged in approximately 170 engagements.
“We were told that the insurgents would fight for a few days and then they would scatter,” McCleod said, “but that’s not what happened. The Taliban aren’t giving up… In groups of three and four, they open fire at the Marines with assault rifles or rockets, then flee. Sometimes they attempt infantry maneuvers, trying to draw the Marines in one direction with a feint, then attacking from another direction.”
“They were tactically sound,” said Charlie Company commander Captain John Moder. “It shows that they’ve done it before, that they might have been trained.”
“The enemy consistently fought from fortified positions to include the hardened structures they evicted the civilians from,” said Major Todd Mahar, operations officer, BLT 1/6, 24th MEU, ISAF. “They dug textbook trench lines and bunker systems and at times had mutually supporting positions. In some areas, within days of the initial assault, we began to see civilians repopulating areas that we had just cleared. They wanted to work their fields and live under the security of the Marines.”
On May 28, two Marine companies pushed from their eastern positions to the Helmand River, disrupting insurgent strongholds in between the two and essentially ending the combat phase of operations.
One of the objectives incorporated in this push included the insurgent base known as Jugroom Fort – the British objective in an attack that took place on January 15 2013.
“Much like we did on the initial assault, the insurgents were oriented to one direction. We went up around them and dropped in behind them … again,” said McCleod. “Within 48 hours of us pushing down on them there was a mass exodus of insurgents.”
Even as the fighting continued, the Marines launched a major COIN operation in Garmsir. “The key to holding any area is the elimination of safe havens,” said Colonel Peter Petronzio, commanding officer, 24th MEU. “Eliminating their ability to have a place where everybody can work, meet, plan, and prepare unopposed is very important to their defeat. The insurgents must be denied the ability to establish these new locations but not at the expense of leaving what has already been cleared. I don’t see them as phases [in the COIN doctrine of clear-hold-build]. I think of them as a circle and they run continuously: we’re constantly clearing, we’re constantly holding, and constantly building.”
On June 5, Garmsir held its first shura in nearly three years – with not only village elders, but the district governor and chief of police in attendance. In less than a month more than 70 shops opened.
“It shows that people feel safe enough in their own community to come back out,” said Master Gunnery Sergeant John Garth, civil affairs chief, 24th MEU, ISAF. “It’s a feeling that is shared by more than Sunday shoppers. You see a lot more of them on the side of the road, more people out playing in the canal.” A local merchant gave one reason for the bolstered confidence of the locals. “Before, everything was bad,” an interpreter relayed. “Since you guys got here the Taliban are not here.”
Major Mark McCarroll, battery commander, Alpha Battery, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, was in charge of efforts in the district to make payments in compensation for the damage done to homes during the operation. He listened to one man’s claim about damage to his house. When the man showed a drawing of his house, McCarroll recognized it instantly. “Yep, that’s the spot,” he said to himself. “We dropped a couple of bombs on it, we did a helicopter run on it and we shot artillery on it. It was uncomfortable and strange.”
Garth said: “A lot of people told me they lived in the desert for 18 months. On the edge of the desert, the adult males, at least the working males, came back to their house every day to work their fields, harvest their poppy or wheat, then they went back to the desert. Why? Because the Taliban didn’t want them living in their houses, but they would let them come back and farm their fields every day – part of that was so the Taliban would have a food source. Had we not come, their houses wouldn’t have been destroyed, but they still would have been living on the edge of the desert under Taliban control. So when you look at it from that perspective they didn’t have a home to begin with. We are now giving them a chance to move back home and rebuild.”
It wasn’t until September 8 that the Marines turned over responsibility for the region’s security to the British and ANSF.7
US General David D. McKiernan assumed command of ISAF from General Dan McNeill during a handover ceremony held on June 3, 2008, in Kabul. This was significant, as the two men had served together during their careers and it was the first time successive commanders had been from the same country since 2003. It also provided a continuity of command and control within the NATO-led ISAF forces. It is important to note that both generals were NATO commanders and did not have command of US regular forces in RC-East or access to information about US Special Operations activities. General McKiernan began a push to bring US forces under the ISAF four-star commander for better command and control of everything that was going on on the ground. This he accomplished in October. The RC-East commander became the US Forces Deputy Commander under General McKiernan. One of the big advantages of the change was that ISAF was better able to support the efforts in the south by now having control over assets in RC-East.
One problem in attempting to coordinate combat actions was that under ISAF there was no US intelligence leadership – it was all ISAF. The commander lacked direct intelligence knowledge at all levels. To counter this lack of intelligence about the enemy’s intentions there was a push for additional ISR assets. The available ISR was focused in RC-East and was controlled by the US Central Command. Forces up north had little to none, and the “Center of Gravity” RC-South had very little. To the west there was basically no ISR. Because of the US commitment in Iraq there were not a lot of ISR resources available to deploy in Afghanistan.
General McKiernan has said:
In 2008 we had five regional commands and unless there is an American presence there is little combat operations. There were regional campaign plans that weren’t tied in with the other regions.
I went down to RC-South to discuss the national campaigns within a region. The situation was the Australians with US support were in Arghistan, the British in “Helmandshire”, Canadians in Kandahar, and the Romanians with US support in Zabul. Four different campaigns with four different political guidance streams. Not coordinated, not synchronized. It was a highly decentralized fight. One of the main things I found was unless we did something different with the security forces in the south we’re stalemated.
The only way to create some momentum in the south is to get more forces. We don’t have enough Afghan forces yet. NATO wasn’t going to provide any additional forces. We had to go back to the US. My initial request was for an additional 30,000 of which the Bush administration approved a small part and, in 2009, the Obama administration approved about 22,000.
We also needed to shift resources from Iraq to Afghanistan. Specifically enablers, not large manpower units but [units with] key capabilities. For example, we probably had two Predator lines a day, while in Iraq they had about 15. We needed more route clearance companies. At the time there were about three in Afghanistan and 80 in Iraq. Other areas that needed additional resources were signal intelligence, engineers, and counter-IED. This caused some friction in Washington.8
The situation for ISAF and US forces continued to deteriorate through the summer. On June 13 Taliban insurgents attacked the Sarposa Prison in Kandahar, killing 15 police officers and freeing more than 1,200 prisoners. In the following days insurgents captured 18 towns around Kandahar while several hundred more infiltrated into the neighboring Arghandab district. These movements were preliminary to an effort to recapture Kandahar. The insurgents destroyed culverts and bridges and planted mines to hamper ISAF and Afghan forces’ mobility, as well as driving local civilians away from their homes. To preempt the attack, large Canadian and ANA forces swept the area, entering Arghandab on June 18. The effort was successful in preventing the planned Taliban assault, but did not inflict significant casualties on the enemy.
The Taliban struck again when a car bomb was detonated in front of the Indian Embassy in Kabul on July 7, killing 58 and injuring over 150 more.
In RC-West the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines Division occupied FOB Leimbach in the Farah province close to the Afghan–Iran border. RC-West, under command of Italian Army Brigadier General Francesco Arena, was not experiencing the intense fighting seen in RC-East and RC-South. It was, however, a major supply and logistical staging area for the Taliban as well as providing secure transit routes for drug trafficking.
Within RC-West was the town of Shewan, a known Taliban and al Qaeda base used to launch attacks against US Marines and Afghan forces. For months, Marine patrols based out of FOB Leimbach had been ambushed, and suffered one of the highest casualty rates of any Marine unit deployed in Iran or Afghanistan.
On August 8 a force assaulted Shewan, comprising two squads of US Marines from Golf Company, 2nd Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines; one 81mm mortar team, an element from 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, three squads of ANP led by Police Sergeant Major Hadji-Kadadoud, one US Army Police Mentor Team (PMT) Advisor, and a DynCorp advisor. The objective was to secure the town as a base of operations and block the road between Herat to the north and the town of Farah to the south.
The Marines set out onto Highway 1, splitting into two groups. 2nd Platoon (call sign Golf 2) and the ANP would circle around Saffarak Mountain and attack the city from the north, while “Recon” unit, commanded by Captain Byron Owen, would travel up Highway 517 directly into Shewan and then dismount and clear the city on foot. Golf 2 was to set up to the north of the city with the 81mm mortar team to provide support for Recon, and to serve as a QRF.
2nd Platoon (call sign Golf 2) moved around Saffarak Mountain as the Recon unit drove up Highway 517. Golf 2 began receiving reports from the ANP that there was movement to their north, and many policemen began firing into the trees in front of them.
As they approached Shewan, Recon began taking small-arms fire from a tree line and the town in a place called Si-Jangal. Their vehicles were hit by a volley of RPGs, and a Humvee was set on fire. The crew suffered minor shrapnel wounds, and other Marines quickly returned fire and rushed to the wounded Marines aid, retrieving them from the vehicle. “The enemy fired over 40 RPGs from the tree line but were unable to effectively engage the Marines trapped in the kill zone because of the high amount of accurate fire being directed at them,” Owen said. “The enemy was reinforcing the tree line and replacing fighters as quickly as we were killing them.”
Golf 2, seeing the smoke from the Humvee, pulled off the road on line and sped towards the berm that ran parallel to the city, firing their crew-served weapons into the Taliban positions. “It turned out later that there was a big meeting of enemy leaders in the town that we had interrupted and we inadvertently trapped them inside of their compound,” the platoon commander wrote later. “They must have thought that if they ambushed us we would cut and run. This was not the case.”
“There’s smoke and fire everywhere, so you can’t tell where the smoke and fire is coming from. A lot of guys, they can’t actually see what to hit,” Owen said. “At this point, there are 100 to 150 Taliban on scene; we’re outnumbered five-to-one. It’s becoming a dire situation where you are firing for your own individual survival.”
The Forward Air Controller with Golf Company called in a pair of F-18s. After making strafing runs they circled back and dropped several 2,000lb bombs, which didn’t discourage the Taliban, who were fighting from well-fortified positions.
What started as an ambush by 30 insurgent fighters had now swelled to a full-fledged assault by an estimated 250 enemy fighters. “We knew it was bad, but we had no idea how bad it was going to be. We stayed on the battlefield and they left. It was clear cut,” Owen said. “There were dead bodies all over the place, and that never happens. The Taliban recover their dead. They retreated, they fled. We fired the last shot.”
The battle lasted eight hours. After the action ended, more than 50 insurgents had been killed according to Marine Corps intelligence estimates. Only two Marines had been wounded. However, the Marines didn’t take the town before returning to FOB Leimbach.9
The pace of attack and counterattack didn’t slacken. A convoy of French and Afghan forces with a US special forces CAS team and its escort was ambushed by 140 HIG fighters in the Uzbin Valley northeast of Kabul on August 18. When the firefight ended the French had lost ten killed and had suffered 21 wounded.
US forces at Camp Salerno, Khost province, in RC-East, were attacked twice in two days, first on August 18 and again on August 19. At least 30 Taliban fighters assaulted the base on the 19th but were stopped by a wall of small-arms fire and Apache gunships. According to reports, seven Taliban fighters were killed, six of whom were suicide bombers. In Laghman province the next day, US-led coalition forces killed more than 30 insurgents.
Throughout the fall, Afghanistan was wracked by attacks on government officials, ASF, coalition troops, foreign aid workers, and international businessmen. Enhanced security was no assurance of surviving an attack.
US ground forces didn’t mount any major operations during the final months of the year, but Air Force and Army Aviation units provided CAS for the British, Canadian, and Australian forces in RC-South as well as covering US forces spread over RC-East.
By the end of 2008 another 155 US troops had been killed and 793 wounded.10 The Taliban, HIG, Haqqani, and other anti-government forces had not been significantly reduced despite heavy losses, and had returned to areas that had been cleared, but not held, by US, NATO, coalition, or ANSF troops.
This increased enemy resistance required a larger commitment of forces to overcome the increasing hostile activity. In a counter move, the US increased its troop levels by 80 percent between January and June, with additional forces added later in the year. Finding the forces needed presented a problem to US and NATO planners, since most, especially the US, were committed to the war in Iraq. At the end of December there were 234,851 US forces in Iraq versus only 44,393 in Afghanistan.11 ANA and ANP units were proving effective when teamed with US or coalition forces, but there were not enough to effectively occupy all of the territory cleared.
Tensions between the US and Pakistan also increased as US-led Special Forces conducted raids attacking houses in a Pakistan village close to a known Taliban and al Qaeda stronghold. The year ended with several major Taliban and criminal thefts and acts of arson against NATO convoys in Pakistan.
So the year ended as it began: in stalemate.