The Kashmiri-based Lashkar-e-Taiba also operates in the border region. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Younus Khalis’s Hezb-i-Islami factions operate in Kunar and in neighboring Bajaur. Seven years later, the local population remains openly hostile to both the Afghan government and US forces, making it an ideal area for extremist activity to thrive.Ī host of Taliban, al Qaeda, and allied extremist groups operate inside Kunar and in the Bajaur tribal agency in neighboring Pakistan. In October 2001, more than 1,000 Pakistani jihadists flooded through the narrow canyon into Afghanistan and joined the Taliban in their fight against Coalition forces. The Ghahki Pass has remained a vital extremist infiltration route since the conflict began. According to one regional report, the US recently finished construction on a vital outpost near the notorious Ghahki Pass, a narrow gorge connecting Pakistan’s Bajaur tribal agency with Kunar province. US forces have stepped up their presence in Kunar and neighboring Nuristan province since 2005, building remote outposts and bases along established smuggling routes used by insurgent forces. The data for 2008 shows the same trend, with Kunar behind only Kandahar in the number of Taliban-related attacks. According to an Afghan security report obtained by The Long War Journal, Kunar suffered 963 attacks in 2007, making it the second most active province for insurgents, after Kandahar. Kunar hosts a major infiltration route and a witches’ brew of extremistĪctivity in Kunar province has been particularly fierce over the past year. They were (Pakistan-based) Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hezb-i-Islami, Taliban and those people who are dissatisfied with the (Karzai) government after these recent incidents,” Nuristani said, intimating the attack was revenge for the US airstrike. “The (attackers) were not only from Nuristan but from other districts,” Nuristani said. ![]() Tamim Nuristani, who served as governor of Nuristan before President Hamid Karzai relieve him of his post for criticizing a US airstrike that is thought to have killed Afghan civilians, said Taliban and Pakistani groups banded together for the attack. A senior Afghan defense official told Al Jazeera that “various anti-government factions including Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Hezb-i-Islami faction were involved” in the strike. The assault on the Wanat outpost was conducted by an alliance of extremist groups operating in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to reports. Fifteen US and four Afghan soldiers were also wounded in the attack. Casualties were heavy on both sides, with nine US soldiers and 40 Taliban fighters killed during the assault. ![]() US troops called in artillery, helicopter, and air support to help beat back the attacking force. Taliban fighters breached the outer perimeter of the outpost but were repelled. The fighters advanced on the outpost from three sides. Approximately 100 enemy fighters were reported to have moved close to the base while under a heavy barrage of machinegun fire, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortars. The Taliban force then conducted a complex attack, coordinating a ground assault with supporting fires. Tribesmen in the town stayed behind “and helped the insurgents during the fight,” General Mohammad Qasim Jangalbagh, the provincial police chief, told The Associated Press. “What they did was they moved into an adjacent village – which was close to the combat outpost – they basically expelled the villagers and used their houses to attack us,” an anonymous senior Afghan defense ministry official told Al Jazeera. The assault was carried out in the early morning of July 13 after the extremist forces, numbering between 200 and 500 fighters, took over a neighboring village. The fortifications were not fully completed, according to initial reports. The troops had little time to learn the lay of the land, establish local contacts, and build an intelligence network. Sunday’s assault occurred just three days after 45 US soldiers, likely from the 173rd Airborne Brigade, and 25 Afghan troops established a new combat outpost in the town of Wanat, which straddles the provincial border between Nuristan and Kunar. Yesterday’s deadly complex attack on a joint US and Afghan outpost in Nuristan province was carried out by a large, mixed force of Taliban, al Qaeda, and allied extremist groups operating eastern Afghanistan.
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