US troops clash with Taliban in east Afghanistan

[unhappycamper]

US troops clash with Taliban in east Afghanistan
(AP) – 2 days ago

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — U.S. forces clashed with insurgents in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, fending off a Taliban assault for the second time in as many days.

U.S. soldiers came under small arms fire early Wednesday morning as they set up a combat outpost in Kunar province, near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. An Associated Press photographer at the base said the insurgents fired from a hillside and the U.S. troops returned fire with rifles and artillery.

The roughly 30-minute battle was the second time the same unit has come under fire in under 24 hours. Late Tuesday, they repelled a Taliban ambush and offensive using artillery and mortars in a fight that raged for nearly an hour. The outpost is said to come under attack by the Taliban as much as five times a week, at times twice daily.

NATO forces are heavily concentrated in the traditional Taliban-stronghold in the south, but the insurgents have increasingly re-expanded their reach, launching attacks in the north while allied militants such as the Haqqani network in Pakistan, have launched attacks in the east.

While NATO says the coalition is making sizable gains in quelling the insurgency, continued violence and chronic instability paint a vastly different picture of the situation in Afghanistan as the war against the Taliban approaches the start of its tenth year.

[xchrom]

1. 5 times a week? somebody isn't pacified. nt

[bemildred]

2. Sounds like we've got them on the run, just a matter of a couple more Friedman units. nt