WASHINGTON — The Pentagon says it had planned to abandon a remote U.S. outpost in Afghanistan where eight soldiers were killed last weekend.
A Pentagon spokesman says the combat outpost in Nuristan province was on a list of far-flung bases that U.S. war commanders had decided were not worth keeping. That decision was on the books before last weekend’s deadly 12-hour firefight.
Insurgents had fought their way inside the base in Afghanistan’s Kamdesh district in a rare security breach before they were driven back under heavy fire.
Saturday’s nearly six-hour battle, near the eastern border with Pakistan, left eight American and three Afghan soldiers dead — one of the heaviest U.S. losses of life in a single battle since the war began.
NATO says around 100 insurgents also were killed.
Most U.S. installations in Iraq and Afghanistan are heavily guarded with rings of razor wire, huge sand-filled barriers, blast walls and security cameras. It is rare — almost unheard of — for insurgents to breach such defenses and get inside.
Maj. T.G. Taylor, an American public-affairs officer, said it was unclear how the attackers penetrated the base or how many there were. He stressed he was not in Kamdesh at the time and that his information was based on preliminary reports.
Taylor said 24 Americans and 10 Afghan soldiers were wounded during the fighting. Large portions of the base burned down, probably from incoming rocket and machine gun fire, he said.
The evening before the attack, insurgents comprised mostly of local Nuristani fighters began warning villagers “that something was going to go down and asked them to evacuate,” Taylor told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from nearby Jalalabad.
It’s unclear whether civilians fled, but local police units did — nearly all except the police chief, who was later captured and executed.
Coalition forces fended off the assault with “a combination of close air support and small-arms fire,” Taylor said.
NATO officials have said the coalition used artillery and helicopter gunships.
But the worst of the battle came when attackers were able to “breach the perimeter of one of the bases and get inside,” Taylor said. “They got a foothold on the base. But coalition and Afghan national army forces consolidated their positions, retook the parts of the base the enemy was on and re-established security.”
Close-quarters combat would have been likely at such a time — a rarity in both the Afghan and Iraq wars for U.S. troops.
Fighting dragged on for about 5 1/2 to six hours until coalition reinforcements were flown in by helicopter to a nearby location, Taylor said. The reinforcements could not land in the area and traveled to the bases on foot.
Asked how insurgents were able to get close enough to carry out the attack, Taylor cited difficulties distinguishing fighters from the general population.
Fort Carson unit
Eight U.S. soldiers killed in a weekend attack in Afghanistan were from a single Fort Carson unit, the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. The brigade has seen some of the fiercest fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lt. Col. Steve Wollman said about 3,500 troops from the brigade are in Afghanistan.
