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Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Gambling

The Taliban are desperate for some type of victory after their spring offensive flopped, and so massed gunmen to hit one of our isolated firebases.

It didn't work out so well for them:


A group of 75 Taliban militants tried to overrun a U.S.-led coalition base in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, a rare frontal attack that left more than 20 militants dead, the coalition said in a statement.

The insurgents attacked Firebase Anaconda from three sides, using gunfire, grenades and 107 mm rockets, the coalition said. A joint Afghan-U.S. force repelled the attack with mortars, machine guns and air support.

"Almost two dozen insurgents were confirmed killed in the attack," the statement said. Two girls and two Afghan soldiers were wounded during the fight in Uruzgan province, it said.

A firebase like Anaconda is usually a remote outpost staffed by as few as several dozen soldiers.



I've said it before, but I'm actually shocked that the enemy in either Iraq or Afghanistan hasn't managed to pop one of our outposts at least once after all this time.

We've kept the enemy atomized and unable to really mass to threaten even small groups of our troops who have air power and reinforcements just a phone call away.