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9 U.S. Dead After Afghan Raid

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Los Angeles Times

Published: July 14, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan - Insurgents armed with machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades mounted a fierce assault on a remote, relatively lightly manned U.S. outpost in northeastern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing nine American soldiers.

It was the largest loss of U.S. troops' lives in a single incident in Afghanistan since June 2005, when 16 Americans died in the same province when a helicopter was shot down. The province, Kunar, is a swath of forbidding, mountainous terrain that borders Pakistan.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, reported the deaths of nine of its soldiers without specifying their nationalities. But a senior Defense Department official and a U.S. military official in Afghanistan, both speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the incident publicly, confirmed the dead were Americans. Fifteen Americans and four Afghan soldiers were wounded.

The senior Defense Department official said the outpost was manned by 45 American troops and 25 Afghan National Army soldiers.

The attack was unusual in its audacity. Taliban guerrillas rarely make sustained frontal assaults on much better-armed coalition forces, preferring hit-and-run attacks and roadside bombs.

But militants do make occasional attempts to overrun outposts, particularly if their surveillance indicates there are relatively few troops inside, or they are aware that terrain or location might make it difficult for Western forces to conduct airstrikes or bring in reinforcements.

Sunday's deaths accelerated what had been a rapidly rising fatality count among coalition troops in Afghanistan. During May and June, the 65 deaths among U.S. and other NATO troops killed in Afghanistan outnumbered American military fatalities in Iraq.

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