NATO forces abandon Afghan outpost after deadly attack

Is Afghanistan turning into Vietnam? Take a hill, see men die, give up the hill only to have to take it back again? 9 lost their lives defending it and 15 were wounded. The Taliban took it back.

NATO forces abandon Afghan outpost after deadly attack
July 16, 2008

NATO said Wednesday it had abandoned an Afghan outpost days after it was stormed by militants who killed nine US soldiers.

The soldiers pulled out of the outpost in Wanat village in northeastern Kunar province on Tuesday, Afghan officials said.

"We are confirming that we have vacated our combat outpost at Wanat," NATO spokesman in Afghanistan, Mark Laity, told AFP.

"All these kinds of outposts are temporary. They serve a purpose and when we consider appropriate we will move them," he said.

The area has since been taken over by Taliban militants, an Afghan official said.
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Afghanistan: Hundreds repelled from NATO outpost

Afghanistan: Hundreds repelled from NATO outpost
Story Highlights
Afghanistan: Attack involved 400 to 500 militants. 9 American soldiers killed

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Insurgents who squared off with U.S. soldiers in a major battle in eastern Afghanistan overran a military observation point just outside a coalition outpost, but failed to take the base, a U.S. military official told CNN.


U.S.-led coalition, Afghan and NATO officials were attempting to piece together details about the confrontation which occurred Sunday in Kunar province, a location close to the Pakistan border.

"It was heroic fighting," said another official, NATO spokesman Mark Laity, describing the U.S.-led troop performance.

"They wanted to overrun that base," he added, referring to the militants. "They failed."

The fighting left nine U.S. soldiers dead and 15 wounded. It marked the most fatalities in an attack on U.S. troops in Afghanistan in three years. An Afghan official estimated that 100 militants died or were wounded in the fighting.

A U.S. official told CNN that as many as 200 insurgents were involved in the strike, which NATO said occurred at an outpost in Dara-I-Pech. However, other officials could not put a figure on the number of insurgent casualties at this time.
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9 US soldiers killed in attack on outpost in Afghanistan

Report: 9 killed in attack on remote Afghan outpost

By Jason Straziuso - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Jul 13, 2008 13:48:23 EDT

KABUL, Afghanistan — A multi-pronged militant assault on a small, remote U.S. base killed nine American soldiers Sunday in one of the deadliest attacks on U.S. troops since the 2001 invasion, a Western official said.

Militants fired machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars from homes and a mosque in the village of Wanat in the northeastern province of Kunar, a mountainous region that borders Pakistan, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.

The attack on the relatively new outpost began at 4:30 a.m. Sunday and lasted throughout the day.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/07/ap_afghanistan_casualties_071308/