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Afghanistan/South Asia

Militants Attack U.S. Base in Afghanistan

2004-03-10

Militants attacked a remote U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan with rockets and heavy machine-guns, sparking a battle that left at least one Afghan injured, the military said Wednesday. The main American base in the south also came under rocket assault. At least a dozen guerrillas assailed the outpost at Nangalam, in Kunar province early on Tuesday morning. The attackers shot about 20 rockets then opened fire on the base, which houses about 100 U.S. Marines and special forces, but inflicted no American casualties, military spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said.
(Sooo, a dozen "millitants" attack a 100 US Marines, misplaced selfconfidence or a dose of that good old jihadi-spirit?)(or drugs?)
U.S. forces responded with gunfire and called in an A-10 ground attack aircraft. Hilferty said an Afghan man wounded in the crossfire was a civilian. Kunar Gov. Fazel Akbar said it was not clear if the man was a militant. Akbar also said another Afghan man was killed in the exchange.

Maybe he was the militant.

Kunar is the northernmost of a string of troubled Afghan provinces along the border with Pakistan where the 13,000-strong U.S.-led coalition is focusing its campaign against militants. At the southern end of that arc, rockets were fired early Wednesday at the U.S. base at the airport near Kandahar, Afghanistanâs second city. Khalid Pashtun, spokesman for the Kandahar provincial government, said three rockets were fired into an empty area of the base grounds. But Hilferty said there were two rockets and that they landed "several kilometers from the airfield.
"(No wonder, when you mess with the US forces the learning-curve of your rocket crews tends to end rather abruptly)
Pashtun blamed ~~themselves~~ remnants of the Taliban regime ousted by a U.S.-led assault in late 2001 for the attack. Mondayâs assault was "relatively large-scale" for Kunar, Hilferty said. "The people of that area have liked us very much, but that appears to be an area where Hekmatyar forces are operating."

Posted by:Evert Visser

#10 Kunar Gov. Fazel "Allan" Akbar

Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-3-10 10:45:00 PM

#9 There nothing in the Koran about quadratic equations.
Yeah... math is hard. But I think it's likely the toxic influence of kickball had more to do with it.

Posted by: Shipman 2004-3-10 5:31:39 PM

#8 ballistics just aren't that hard

There nothing in the Koran about quadratic equations.

Posted by: ed 2004-3-10 3:49:40 PM

#7 moths to a flame.

Posted by: B 2004-3-10 3:36:56 PM

#6 What's the CEP on Hek's rocket attacks? Same city? Same province?
Take your time catching him, boys. They might get somebody to replace him who knows what he's doing.

Posted by: tu3031 2004-3-10 3:34:52 PM

#5 I'm glad they missed, but geebus, ballistics just aren't that hard.

Posted by: Shipman 2004-3-10 3:32:21 PM

#4 "that appears to be an area where Hekmatyar forces are operating."
"there were two rockets and that they landed several kilometers from the airfield."

Yup, that's Heks boys.

Posted by: Steve 2004-3-10 2:00:24 PM

#3 mjh: Ditto! Thanks to Tank Killer, I looove the Warthog!

Posted by: BH 2004-3-10 1:55:57 PM

#2 Gawd...I have had a crush on those A-10's since I played the PC game Tank Killer and read the little brochure...

two excerpts stick in my mind:
"the recoil from the A-10's main gun is equal to the thrust from one of its two engines"

"A-10's main gun can maintain a rate of 2400 milk-bottle size, DU rounds per minute"...

(sigh)

Posted by: mjh 2004-3-10 1:29:24 PM

#1 U.S. forces responded with gunfire and called in an A-10 ground attack aircraft.

Ouch. A-10 vs shahids = shahid chunks.

Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-3-10 1:08:39 PM

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