KANDAGAL, Afghanistan — U.S. troops on Wednesday launched a fearsome barrage of artillery and rockets into a mountainous militant stronghold in eastern Afghanistan where they suffered their deadliest combat loss over a year ago. Plumes of smoke rose over the top of pine tree-forested mountain ranges in Kunar province's Korangal Valley, where scores of troops from the New York-based 10th Mountain Division are trying to curb militant attacks in this volatile region bordering Pakistan. "We have had nonstop contact for several days and the enemy is on the run," said Staff Sgt. William Wilkinson, 36, of Charlotte, North Carolina, who heads a team firing mortars toward militant positions. "We have cut them off a couple of times and they are not doing as well as they thought they would."No militant casualty figures were available from the heavy bombardment of locations some three miles deep into the Korangal Valley, where Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters have set off roadside bombings and staged ambushes targeting American and Afghan forces operating in the region. The Korangal Valley was the scene of a June 28, 2005, ambush by militants of a four-man U.S. special forces team, three of whom were killed and the other rescued days later. A U.S. helicopter sent to find the special forces also crashed in the valley on June 28, killing 16 American troops in the deadliest single attack on the U.S. military since the war began here in 2001.
"This is a place where the Taliban and Al Qaeda have (been) known to roam freely and right now we are putting a stop to that," Wilkinson said. The echo of cannon fire rumbled through the valley overnight and Wednesday as Howitzers fired round after round of 155 mm artillery shells toward insurgent positions. Tracer fire lit up the nighttime sky and Apaches helicopters fired rockets into hilltop positions.