U.S. Kills 70 Taliban, Loses No One In Huge Outpost Battle

[American]

Link

By David Axe | November 17, 2011 | 9:53 am
Twice in the span of a month, the Taliban has unleashed human waves on one of the U.S. Army’s most isolated Afghan outposts. Twice, the American soldiers guarding the tiny fort have beat back the attackers, killing scores of extremists while suffering no losses of their own.

The U.S. troops’ skill, and luck, have been remarkable. They’re going to need both, as more large-scale attacks seem likely.

The Oct. 7 and Nov. 8 assaults on Combat Outpost Margah, in remote Paktika Province on the border with Pakistan, came almost exactly a year after one of the biggest pitched battles of the decade-long war. An October 2010 attack on COP Margah by hundreds of Taliban foot soldiers wielding rockets and AK-47s resulted in a lopsided tactical victory for the Americans. More than 90 Taliban died in a counter-barrage of gunfire, helicopter-fired missiles and satellite-guided bombs. As in the recent assaults, no Americans died — though the fighting left deep psychological scars.

The sustained fighting around COP Margah underscores the Americans’ battlefield prowess and the Taliban’s continuing ability to mass large numbers of troops despite concerted NATO efforts to seal off the border with Pakistan and thus strangle the Afghan insurgency. U.S. operations in and around the town of Margah, depicted in my video above, are actually ramping up while NATO activities elsewhere in Afghanistan slowly wind down.

I'd say our boys are doing a damn good job over there. :thumbs:

 

[apdst]

Nice shooting!

 

[Temporal]

Where is the Taliban getting all these people from when they have no official standing army?

 

[American]

They've been developing their recruiting for years, they have a system.

 

[apdst]

Where is the Taliban getting all these people from when they have no official standing army?

Probably forced conscription.

 

[StillBallin75]

Probably forced conscription.

or paying them - a la "Ten-dollar Taliban."

 

[apdst]

or paying them - a la "Ten-dollar Taliban."

Or, put a Takarov to their grape and give them a choice between joining the Taliban, or getting a one way ticket to the after life.

 

[joko104]

We can be killing "the enemy" in Afghanistan forever if we wish. Anyone I speak with who was in combat areas there all have the same opinion.

1. We are doing good for the people in that we provide safety, law and order as the only police force.

2. We are accomplishing nothing in the long run as anything we have done will be undone as soon as our troops leave. We could stay another year or another decade and so long as we are there then there will be some degree of law and order. But we are changing nothing otherwise.

3. They see Afghanastians as backwards and ignornant people they come to have contempt for.