Kunar ambush-one long fighting summer

COP Monti Kunar-

Pvt. Justin Greer cranked his turret towards incoming fire. “Light that mountain up!” Cpl. William Blessing yelled.

2^nd Platoon Gator Co. 2-327^th Infantry had been convoying from their outpost towards Asadabad to take pictures of possible sites for the Sept. 18 provincial elections, when the convoy suddenly halted near one of the Taliban's favorite ambush points.

(Photo: Soldiers of Gator Co. 2-327th rush to give medical attention to a wounded soldiers while others scan the mountain they'd just been attacked from.)

Greer fired a steady burst of Mark 19 grenade rounds. Minutes later we heard a snap and Greer yelled as he started to fall. “You hit?” Pvt. Jones yelled.

“In the head!” Greer said. He fell across their laps in the back of the MRAP, and Jones began to bandage his head. “Your helmet saved you man," Jones said.

“Hey, man that gun!” someone yelled, “Stay low.” Spc. Moffat got up in the turret, peering only half over the top, and began firing.

Greer, his head in a bandage, a concussed look in his eyes. “Holy Sh--!” he said, and turned over the inside of his helmet. Ripped stitching and a blood spot showed where the bullet stopped. He found the round and put it in his pocket.

(Photo: A soldier suffering a concussion is helped to safety.)

As Cpl. Blessing got out and guided the MRAP back towards the steep cliff face, we glimpsed thick black smoke billowing from the convoy's front vehicle.  This was the reason we'd stopped.

And worse, 2^nd Platoon has pulled a casualty out of the vehicle to the roadside directly facing the mountain. In the rocks they frantically worked on the soldier. His arm had been amputated by a direct hit to the driver’s side cabin from a heavy weapon aimed above.

Pvt. Jon Duran and Pvt. Jesse Townsend who had both been in the back of the same vehicle, now in flames, somehow reacted.  Townsend put a tourniquet on despite being temporarily blinded by smoke and Duran somehow got the driver out while rounds were shooting down at them.

The tourniquet held according to the platoon medic Spc. Renfrow.  Duran and Townsend jumped into another vehicle before the convoy raced to FOB Wright in Asadabad, where they were evaluated for concussions.

Several soldiers showed the symptoms of what the Army calls MTBI (Mild Traumatic Brain Injury) from previous RPG attacks on their convoy.  This attack counted their third or fourth such injury.  It would likely mean they'd be forced to return to the States per Army policy on the third such wound.

“Our most heroic guys, definitely Pvt. Duran and Pvt. Townsend, suffering from concussions, yet… enough presence of mind to get out and go help an injured buddy,” said Platoon leader, Lt. Ryan Korlicki, of Milwaukee, WI.

“Once we got hit, there was smoke everywhere, we wanted to get out but there was small arms fire, so we were pinned down…” Pvt Townsend said.

“My hands were all numb so I tried come on come, (with tourniquet), so it was on there good… You could see but everything was really blurry, plus being dizzy and all the smoke, eyes squinting.”

(Pvt. Townsend outside the medical cache in Asadabad.)

"One thing we can say," Sgt. Stahl, in Civil Affairs said, “That’s not a good place for an election site.”

Long Fighting Summer

This attack is just one in a long fighting summer.  The Taliban use Kunar's deep mountain passes into Pakistan to resupply their men and weapons.  This is nothing new, and part of what makes Kunar so historically dangerous.  There are always reports of strong HIG (as the U.S. military calls Taliban-financed warlord Hekmatyar's fighters). presence here and summer rumors of Al-Qaeda channeling money through Arabs in Kunar.

The 2nd-327th Infantry made two big pushes into the Marwara district abutting Pakistan this summer.  (Read more about the offensive in The Long War Journal  ) A district known to be completely controlled by the Taliban.  They pushed the Taliban out, reportedly killing hundreds of their fighters, but some soldiers say Afghan forces ultimately refused to hold the area.

This is one of the biggest frustrations in Kunar- the U.S. can muster a huge force and win decisively, with ratios of enemy killed to U.S. of at least 20-to-1, but because they can't coordinate with Afghan Army forces beforehand, for fear of leaks, the Afghans say they were unprepared to hold the area because they were not consulted with.  It also brings up the larger question would the ANA hold the ground even if they promised to.  Soldiers at Monti face the same problems as the battalion as a whole, but on a smaller, more intense scale.

Monti is located in a strategic spot- the only outpost between the rest of their battalion to the South and COP Bostic, near the border with Nuristan to the North.  The theory is if the Taliban can crush Monti, they can cut off the only resupply route to Bostic and therefore control all of Nuristan now that the U.S. has pulled almost all of its bases from the province.  That's one theory anyways.  Another is that with the closing of the Korengal valley in May, the Taliban believes they can actually win a war of attrition here and cause another base to close by constant attacks.

Whatever the enemy motivation, Monti has taken some unusually bad casualties this summer- including five soldiers killed to an IED blast, two killed to a suicide vest, one killed in a lucky shot during a fire fight and another killed when a 107 rocket hit the base.

The fighting had slowed during Ramadan following a massive response to an Aug. 6^th attack on the COP- what they call a million dollar firefight because so much ordinance was fired from the American positions up at the surrounding mountains.  After losing a soldier in any enemy rocket attack earlier this summer, there is the sense of a no-holds barrage back at the mountainside.  But it's hard to see the enemy in the mountains with the naked eye.  Soldiers can focus on enemy movement using special electronic cameras and scopes, and pin point rockets and artillery.  They say they haven't killed any civilians this summer.

"I truly believe you can't kill your way to a victory, but you can scare the s--- out of them, and cause them to change tactics," said Company Commander Capt. Jeffrey Hinds, who assisted with the rescue of his wounded soldiers during the Aug. 26th ambush.

Convoy and COP attack
But two days after the ambush, Delta 4^th Plt. were engaged in close firefight while trying to guard the supply convoy on Route California.  The supply convoy of Army and bullet-riddled civilian tractor trailers is a prime target and almost always gets attacked either traveling North to Cop Bostic or on its way back.  The fight lasted on and off for several hours; two local national drivers were killed by the Taliban and several were wounded. Capt. Hinds ordered bombs dropped on positions just across the highway.

The next day intel sources said COP Monti would be attacked by scores of fighters.  The intel was correct almost to the hour.  Afghan guards spotted men crawling through the wadi armed with RPGs and fired.  Enemy recoiless rifle rounds hit the old British outpost soldiers man as an observation point above Monti.

Third platoon sped down the mountain routes back to the COP, where the mountains overhead were already smoking from .50 Cal and 105 artillery rounds. Delta Co. fired cyclically from their gun trucks.  Over a hundred artillery rounds pounded the surrounding mountainsides. The fight essentially ended when four 500 pound bombs slammed the mountainsides making the artillery blasts look small.  The bulk of enemy shooting probably hadn't lasted more than 20 minutes.  The hours of shooting that followed were attempts to get them as they fled down certain known escape routes on the backsides of the mountains. 

In the last two days we’ve probably killed 15-25 enemy in each firefight,” Capt. Hinds said.

(Photo: The medivac chopper lands to bear the most wounded soldier to Bagram hospital.)

I asked him about Counter-Insurgency operations.  Capt Hinds said separating the enemy and killing them is part of COIN, but that to make lasting inroads they want to establish a joint Afghan command center to coordinate local Army, Police and Border Patrol and to possibly stand up some local militias in areas where they trust the influence makers.  But Hinds admitted these projects would probably have to wait until the end of the fighting season, when the bulk of Taliban fighters either return to Pakistan or hang up their rifles and blend back into the population.